Six Pitfalls to Avoid When Creating a World-Class Injury Prevention Program -  Pitfall Six: Forgetting the Value of Expertise

When it comes to creating a world-class injury prevention program, to make the biggest impact on productivity, morale, and a company’s bottom line, a comprehensive solution must be implemented. As we’ve discussed in the previous blogs of this series, Six Pitfalls to Avoid When Creating a World-class Injury Prevention Programs, a comprehensive solution contains more than just onsite rehabilitation; it contains prevention, education, early interventions, and so much more.

In the final part of our series, we explore the expertise that comes with a world-class injury prevention program and why some in upper management can fall into the pitfall of overlooking the value of that expertise.

A Mature Injury Prevention Program

After launching a comprehensive injury prevention program, the solution takes several years to mature and become fully established. Based on an internal field study, we know that during these first years, a company will likely experience a significant drop in claims costs, increased productivity and improved employee morale. After a program is in place for several years and has reached maturing, while these benefits are all still experienced, there is a less dramatic drop in improvement as there is not as much room for change.

It is after this maturing stage that our Program Managers report some companies begin thinking about moving away from an outsourced comprehensive program to an internal solution. This line of thinking is mostly due o thinking the expertise of an outside system is no longer needed since the company has achieved their goals of reduced claims and costs.

An Injury Prevention Program vs A Prevention Person

A long-time distribution client approached their Program Manager with this thought. The program was mature and had been established for several years. The company had seen great savings after implementing but the Vice President of Operations was not entirely convinced they needed a comprehensive program since incident rates were so low. During a meeting with the Program Manager, the VP asked why the company should stick with Briotix and not just hire a physical trainer for half of the cost.

The Program Manager explained that removing a comprehensive program would be a mistake for both the company and the employees. While a physical trainer or nurse could offer some onsite services, when you offer employees a quality injury prevention solution, you get a program and not just a person.

In a world-class injury prevention program, company’s get more than just claims management, or onsite rehabilitation. The true power of the injury prevention program is the prevention. Prevention comes with training, education and early interventions. Plus, with the Briotix solution, company’s get comprehensive data and accurate records that are kept on all services provided, which if a claim ever when to court, offers the necessary documentation.

After this conversation, the VP determined the company was still in need of the expertise provided by an injury prevention program rather than just one person.

The Cost of Saving Internally

Not all clients determine that maintaining the services of an outsourced expert is worth it once their program comes to maturing. There are times upper management decides to hire an onsite nurse or physical trainer to maintain the program.

This was the case with one heavy manufacturing client. After several years of using the Briotix solution, the client decided they would promote an internal person to run the program. At the time, the Briotix program cost the company approximately $75,000 per year. They were able to hire this person for $40,000. However, we learned that over the next 18 months, their claims went up 85% costing the company an additional $300,000 that year.  

Learn More About our Injury Prevention Solution

A world-class injury prevention program improves employee health, productivity, and morale while reducing absenteeism and workers’ compensation costs. Briotix offers a comprehensive prevention program that leverages our expertise with dynamic training, onsite rehabilitation, and early intervention solution. To learn more about our program, contact Briotix today. Give us a call to speak to one of our Program Managers or simply complete the online contact form and we will contact you.