Work Hardening Services
The longer an injured worker is away from their work, the more complicated the impact on their job and life. Meanwhile, as an employer, you are faced with uncertainty of when a valuable member of the team will return.
Through Workforce Health, a team of professionals works together to help injured workers return to their jobs by recreating the physical demands of the job and improving strength, confidence and stability, and learning how to work safely to help avoid future injuries. Work hardening is an important link between the initial acute injury management and return to work.
Workforce Health’s comprehensive work hardening program, provided through Community Memorial Hospital, has three major components:
Job simulation -- Activities that recreate the physical demands of tasks
Fitness/conditioning -- A fitness routine using equipment and individual exercises to improve overall conditioning and endurance for work
Education -- Helps workers understand their injury, the risk factors that contributed to the injury and ways to avoid re-injury
Services include:
- Occupational therapy
- Physical therapy
- Body mechanics instruction
- Functional capacity evaluation
- On-site job analysis/ergonomics consultation
- Vocational rehabilitation and work adjustment counseling (communication and coordination of services with employer, insurance carrier and healthcare providers)
- Psychology services (pain management through biofeedback, relaxation, counseling and education)
Learn more about the Work Hardening Program.
