Every day in America, someone, somewhere, will become the victim of work related injuries. There are many different types of injuries reported and hundreds of thousands of dollars paid out every year to injured workers by Workers Compensation to cover time lost from the workplace. There are many simple steps to take to correct and prevent these injuries from happening, although many of them will go unheeded, until the next injury occurs.
Causes of Injuries
Work related injuries occur for a variety of reasons in the workplace today. Some of them are simply random accidents, whereas others are the result of basic safety rules not being followed, or enforced. People who work with tools regularly or operate large machinery with cutting or crimping edges make up a large number of these injuries.
Another type of injury that emergency rooms everywhere will see a great number of are muscle injuries related to improper lifting in the workplace and repetitive motion injuries. The two most common of this type are carpal tunnel injuries and back injury.
Compensation Law
Under the federal Workmen's Compensation law, any employee that has an injury at work must be given medical attention at a local emergency room or urgent care facility soon after the incident happens. In order to file for workmen's compensation, the injuries must be fully documented and a doctor's orders for treatment will need to be filed with the workplace human resources department, their insurance agency, and the government in order for the injured employee to be given a decision as to whether or not they are entitled to compensation.
As part of the medical attention and examination immediately following any workplace injury, a drug test will need to be administered as well, to ensure that the employee was in full control of their faculties at the time of the accident. Other documents that will need to be filed will include the doctor's treatment notes, employee's testimony of events leading up to the injury, whether any safety rules were violated and the employer's testimony as to the soundness of any safety procedures currently being used.
After the Injury
Once the patient has been treated and the severity of the injury has been determined, they will either be released back to work or put on restricted work orders. A set of restricted work orders will include a time-period for which the employee cannot work as normal or a temporary release to be given light duty assignments that will not cause their injury to become worse. Muscle strains, cuts, wounds and other injuries that require time for the body to heal will garner this type of medical restriction.
Another part of being able to heal and return to work at a future date will often include some form of occupational therapy be done by the injured worker. This can be in one of two forms:
1. Physical occupational therapy that centers around getting the worker back to full health and able to return to the workforce
2. Educational occupational therapy where the employee must prove that they have been taught the proper procedures involving safety and the operation of their normal job and can be expected to maintain the highest standards of safety from this point on.
Not every company requires the second form of occupational therapy, but perhaps if they did there would be fewer work related injuries in the future.
Source by Susan Solo
