1.2: Injury Management Framework
- 1.2.1: The traditional approach to injury management
- 1.2.2: Injury management is changing
- 1.2.3: MHCC framework for injury management
- 1.2.4: Potential Injury Pathway
1.2.1: The traditional approach to injury management
The traditional approach to injury management includes:
- Predominantly biomedical factors
- A focus on individual distress and Impairment
- Risk management
- A linear return-to-work process; healing occurs during absence from, and prior to returning to, the workplace
1.2.2: Injury management is changing
Injury Management has changed significantly over recent years. Just as our sector has moved beyond solely using the medical model for mental health support - so too has the occupational health sector for workplace injury management.
In June 2011, the Heads of Workers' Compensation Authorities and Heads of Compulsory Third Party released the following statement:
the traditional medical model, which assumes a linear relationship between disease, symptoms, disability, and incapacity for work … is often inadequate as it can:
- be too simplistic
- over-emphasise impairment
- incorrectly assume a direct causal link between impairment and disability
- fail to take sufficient account of the personal and social dimensions of disability
"We accept [the World Health
Organisation's generic
biopsychosocial approach
as
critical to improving outcomes when managing injured
workers".
The above statement prompts us to reconsider our approach to injury management.
1.2.3: MHCC framework for injury management
Our injury management framework overlaps with health promotion and injury prevention and includes:
- Improving individual capacity, health and wellbeing
- Attending to individual distress and injury
- Improving organisational climate and leadership
- Safety and injury management systems
1.2.4: Potential Injury Pathway
