Evidence-Informed Approaches
Often promoted, but nearly as often fails to deliver useful tools or interventions that are applicable to real-world client settings.
Developing practical and useable approaches based on evidence is a question of balance, defining the optimal point on the continuum of possibilities extending from: ‘only deploy a product or intervention when there is watertight evidence that it is effective’, through to 'deploy anything that anyone claims works’. These are both equally absurd positions, and clearly middle-ground is always needed in real life.
The major benefit of an evidence-informed method is that it allows confidence in determining what works, what is less effective, what is ineffective, and what is harmful.
For an approach to be evidence-informed it must have a scientific basis, but invariably includes additional elements. High quality scientific expertise is therefore necessary, but not sufficient. There is the requirement for skilled interpretation of the overall picture obtained from evidence, and the subsequent translation of this into a pragmatic policy that can be implemented on a day-to-day basis within a client's business framework.
Consultancy Services
We provide high quality expertise and professional advice on a range of topics across the occupational health spectrum. These include: health at work, evidence reviews, ergonomics, pain management, musculoskeletal medicine and orthopaedic surgery, pain management and interventional pain medicine, and case management. We have an excellent track record demonstrated by the many projects, reviews, guides, and advisory information available for download in the library section of this website.
We are committed to
- using an evidence-informed approach
- focusing on solutions
- developing practical and user-friendly methods
Solution Focus
Devising solutions to problems requires a 'can do' approach, and this philosophy needs to thread right through to end users.
In the work and health arena we believe strongly in emphasising ability, not disability; and advise those experiencing illness or injury on the basis of 'do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do'.
Practical and User-Friendly
Complex approaches to difficult problems are frequently off-putting and result in little or no uptake in everyday settings. We have a good record in making complex concepts and processes into simpler, comprehensible and useful approaches. This should not be mistaken for over-simplification. The focus remains on effectiveness, with usability.
The key is to ensure that the scientific basis is used to inform and develop solutions that are outcome-focused and centered on the needs of the client; and, that these are distilled into components that have ready applicability and acceptability.
Biopsychosocial
The biopsychosocial approach is the most successful for understanding how to manage the common health problems that prevail in modern workplaces.
It is often perceived as competing with the traditional medical model in a kind of 'either-or' approach. In fact, it is a refinement and extension of the medical model, containing the full biomedical approach at it's core, and gaining from all that it has to offer.
Our expertise lies in bringing biopsychosocial approaches in an uncomplicated manner into real-world situations, allowing clients to gain the available benefits.
- development of management & care pathways
- patient education material
- advice on disability management
- advice on pain management
- individual and group training
- return-to-work protocols
- modified work protocols
- practice standards
- evidence-based funding policy
- line managers and human resources (HR)
- small and medium size enterprises (SMEs)
- rehabilitation
- case management
- occupational health
- public health
- health promotion
- clinical services
- absence management
- private medical insurance
- healthcare providers
- rehabilitation providers
- case management providers
- health insurers
- human resources departments
- occupational health departments
- NHS departments
- PCT's
- addressing obstacles to recovery
- stepped care approaches
- use of biopsychosocial principles
- ensuring all players are onside
- education – clinical and workplace
- training – clinical and workplace
- dispelling myths
Health at Work
Our overall philosophy is based on the Norton Hadler phrase that "Work should be comfortable when we are well and accommodating when we are ill or injured".
This means a commitment to using ergonomics principles, but going well beyond this by also using a multimodal approach to ensure all players are onside.
We believe that work should not be considered 'toxic'. Work is essentially good for health and well-being, assuming that significant workplace hazards are controlled through suitable risk assessment and intervention.
Our approach is about promoting the culture of ‘health at work’ and ‘health through work’. That is a matter of ensuring that work is comfortable, satisfying, and permits a suitable measure of control. It is also a mater of developing links with healthcare. Ultimately, health at work needs all the players (workers, employers, managers, health professionals) to be onside, believing the same things and working together to a common goal. Operationalising all this, and getting it into practice, is where we come in.
Page updated 10/01/2012 9:17 am