Transcription:
Services for Injured Workers

Prakash Chandran: Welcome to Picking Our Brain with Shepherd Center. I'm Prakash Chandran. Today, we're discussing Workers' Compensation. Even though safeguards to protect workers have become more robust over time, if something does happen and a worker ends up unfortunately injured, Workers' Compensation can offset costs and help provide support and services for that employee.

Here to talk more about it is Gloria Fagan, a Workers' Compensation Outreach Manager for Shepherd Center. Gloria, it is really great to have you here today. Thank you so much for being here. I'd love to get started by learning a little bit more about your role at Shepherd Center.

Gloria Fagan, RN, BSN: Well, first, thank you so much for having me here today. As a Work Comp Outreach Manager, my role is to provide and promote information regarding Shepherd's Center's services and programs, even education opportunities for the Work Comp population. I like to expand and maintain partnerships within the Work Comp community. And my ultimate goal is to bridge the gap and educate about all the services that Shepherd has to offer for the injured worker. So through outreach, we want to create and implement strategic communications to advance brand identity and broaden awareness of our programs offered at Shepherd.

Prakash Chandran: Okay. Understood. And you mentioned a couple of times the Work Comp community. I think I have a general idea of what that is, but can you at a high level describe that for us?

Gloria Fagan, RN, BSN: So the Work Comp community could be carriers, providers, adjusters, like claim adjusters. So once that injury happens, you may have external case managers who are on that case to guide the work Comp patient and help assist them through the process of getting into rehabilitation.

Prakash Chandran: Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And for new external Workers' Compensation carriers, providers, or adjusters, can you give us a brief overview of Shepherd Center?

Gloria Fagan, RN, BSN: Absolutely. So Shepherd was founded in 1975. It's a private nonprofit hospital specializing in medical treatment, research and rehabilitation. Our specialty though is spinal cord and brain injury. Shepherd Center is also ranked among the top 10 in rehabilitation hospitals in the United States. There are over 500 hospitals that actually refer their patients to our level of care.

But what I really want our new Work Comp carriers and providers to know is that when it comes to our functional outcomes, our patient outcomes, widely exceed the national average, making our return to work and community rates among the best in the nation. So at Shepherd, we know that Worker's Comp patients, case managers and carriers are facing real challenges. Therefore, we want to offer the best care to manage long-term costs while we aid in coordinating care across the providers.

Prakash Chandran: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And, you know, you talked about the specialty of spinal cord and brain injury. Are there other services offered for injured workers that are worth mentioning?

Gloria Fagan, RN, BSN: Yes. So we do outpatient surgery outpatient services. And that could be with our Shepherd Pain and Spine, Concussion. So it doesn't have to be traumatic injuries, which I think a lot of people get that misconception that we only do traumatic injuries. But if you think about it, most injuries at work tend to be a fall. So our concussion clinic can help with that. Our pain clinic is available to also assist with that.

Prakash Chandran: Okay. That's good to know. So let's talk about the admissions process for injured workers. How can someone make a referral?

Gloria Fagan, RN, BSN: So making a referral, we can do that in several ways. Most commonly, we get referrals from the hospital settings where we have experienced access case managers across the US that help kind of navigate this admission process. The process includes the assessment of like their medical, clinical and psychosocial needs.

What they're trying to do is get involved with that injured worker and their family to make sure that we're providing the most appropriate level of care for them. The initial assessment process may be completed by phone or onsite visit in that hospital setting where the injured worker is located. You can also submit a referral online or by phone or fax. Those numbers are found on our Shepherd website. A lot of times we may ask basic information like the patient's current location, potential date of transfer, when did the injury happen, what was the onset of injury, the level of injury, type of illness, medical history, and just basic information such as their insurance provider and case worker.

Prakash Chandran: And what about communication after the referral is made? Do you take steps at Shepherd Center to ensure that the referer has a clear understanding of the patient's journey at Shepherd?

Gloria Fagan, RN, BSN: Absolutely. So as I was speaking about, our access case managers stay on the case with that patient and their family. So they continue to educate them on the process with working alongside the hospital discharge planner or social worker in the hospital. So let's say there's a social worker in the hospital that's handling the discharge process. Our access case managers, like I said, are across the United States. And whether they're coming onsite or calling you over the phone, they're going to go through all of the clinical issues that's happening with that injured worker and help kind of guide this process. After which, they'll have an external case manager that's assigned not related to us, but it may be with that Work Comp program that that injured worker is associated with. So it could be that provider and then they're assigned the external case manager who's also involved in helping progress their care.

Prakash Chandran: So Gloria, I know that October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month. And going back home or work after injury can be particularly stressful. So what are some of the training or services offered at Shepherd to make this transition go more smoothly?

Gloria Fagan, RN, BSN: Absolutely. So October, we did celebrate National Disability Employment Awareness Month, and that's really close to my heart. I think it's important to acknowledge the very contribution that workers with disabilities offer. Some of the transition that we offer is mobility training, where our therapists help patients practice skills ranging from mobility and bed transfers or role skills management and even assisted walking.

We have community reentry outings. Patients go into surrounding areas, neighborhoods to help practice skills needed in their own community. We also offer family caregiving training. These are classes focused on the family member or caregiver to make sure they understand this new injury or illness. Then our medical care continues on into our outpatient day program to minimize the chance of further medical complications that are secondary to this new injury or illness. So our clinicians help prepare this injured worker to care for like neurogenic bowel and bladder, spasticity, blood pressure, blood clots, contractures, strength or other mobility issues that they're having.

We do also offer return to work counseling, whether the injured worker returns to the same type of work they were doing before their injury or if they've made accommodations to do something new, our counselors are there to help guide them through that transition.

Prakash Chandran: And you touched on this briefly already, but can you expand a little bit more on the continuum of care at Shepherd?

Gloria Fagan, RN, BSN: Absolutely. So Shepherd is almost like a one-stop shop. Patients come to us and they can be at their most critical levels, so they can start in the ICU, transfer to acute care or inpatient program, outpatient services and like you said, as I mentioned before, our Shepherd Pain and Spine. We also have an upper extremity clinic, urology clinic, and complex concussion clinic, just to name a few. But our goal really is to maximize recovery and decrease secondary complications for these patients with Work Comp injuries. So we really try to make sure that everything that we can do, Shepherd can provide. So anything that that Work Comp or injured worker needs, we have available on site.

Prakash Chandran: Now, one of the things, that I found in doing a little research for this conversation was an article around the importance of advocating for inclusivity in the workplace, especially as it relates to workers' compensation. And I was hoping that you could just talk about that at a high level.

Gloria Fagan, RN, BSN: Absolutely. So I really do see that there's an increased need for awareness around that. With that, we want to make sure that our injured workers are going into a place that is suitable and that has the varied equipment necessary to perform their jobs. So many places don't offer the basic needs of someone with a disability. The Disability Act of course came into work, but there's still mounds and mounds of levels of things that we can do as companies to make sure that we're making everything accessible.

So if those needs may be for someone who has a vision impairment and just offering big computer screens so that they can see or certain colors. If we need to have low-level buttons, if they're in a wheelchair, to push that button to open the door. So, you know, when you're going into the supermarket or going into the mall, just having those low-level buttons that we sometimes see to open doors, do you have that on the job site to make sure that that patient is having easy accessibility to get into that facility?

Just basic needs, if you, you know, go into the restroom, things become quickly more complex and a little bit more complicated after you've suffered a severe injury. So we want to make sure that everyone's aware and that we're treating this patient population fairly because they're moving into a new way of life. And it's not something that they can't contribute to, but we may need a little bit of help to make sure that we're aware of the things that we normally do with ease that they may have a little extra trouble doing.

Prakash Chandran: Yeah, I think that's such an important topic and it's wonderful that you have that thoughtfulness there at Shepherd Center and the facility that believes in kind of accommodating for all of those needs. So just as we begin to close here, do you have any final thoughts that you want to share with our audience, just regarding the services for injured workers offered there there at Shepherd Center?

Gloria Fagan, RN, BSN: Yes. I just want to add, you know, we have such assistive technologies that we offer there, whether that's manual or robotic-assisted for walking or adaptive driving. We also have neuropsychology and counseling services for patients and families. I talked about our ICU unit, but we also have like a DOC program, which is called disorders of consciousness, where people who have low-level consciousness due to brain injury can come in and we treat those patients.

Lastly, our peer support program is so amazing. With this program, recently injured workers can meet and talk with others who've had similar injury and relate to them. But I really encourage people to go into our website because there's so much that we have to offer that I couldn't even get to the tip of the iceberg, but I really think that if you go to our website, there's a lot to learn. And if you have questions, it's available to you.

Prakash Chandran: Well, Gloria, I think that is the perfect place to end. Thank you so much for your time today.

Gloria Fagan, RN, BSN: Thank you and have a great day.

Prakash Chandran: That's Gloria Fagan, Workers' Compensation Outreach Manager for Shepherd Center. For more information about Shepherd Center, you can visit shepherd.org. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and be sure to check out the entire podcast library for topics of interest to you.

This is Picking Our Brain with Shepherd Center. I'm Prakash Chandran. Thank you so much, and we will talk next time.