2024 Theo Award Winner: Total Productive Staffing

Total Productive Staffing (TPS), doing business as Coast Personnel Services, is a temporary staffing agency that has made significant strides in improving workplace safety for its associates. Recognizing that temporary employees are their most valuable asset, TPS embarked on a journey to enhance their safety culture and workers’ compensation program.

Despite tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) like claim frequency and severity, TPS realized that simply sharing this data with branch managers was not yielding the desired improvements. The company needed a more aggressive and engaging approach to communicate the implications of these metrics and their impact on the organization, its employees and its profitability.

Tackling the Problem

In January 2022, TPS initiated monthly meetings with operational and branch offices to focus on safety and claims management. These meetings aimed to educate and train staff on best practices, covering topics such as client selection, hiring practices, early incident reporting, communication with injured workers, and medical and litigation management.

“Initially, the team didn’t fully grasp the significance of workers’ compensation and its impact on the organization. It took several meetings before I felt we were effectively communicating this to them. The turning point came when we started holding folks accountable for how it affects the company financially,” said Christy Najar, workers’ comp manager, safety & risk management, TPS.

“Once they understood this, they became much more engaged and attentive during our monthly meetings. Having the support and presence of leadership, including one of our owners, added weight to the message I was conveying.

“Seeing others besides myself emphasizing the importance of workers’ compensation helped drive the point home. Their backing reinforced everything I was explaining to the team.”

TPS implemented several innovative programs to address safety concerns. Pre-hiring integrity testing was introduced to ensure the placement of safety-focused individuals.

“As the watchdog for our pre-hire integrity testing program, I receive monthly reports that I review and distribute to all our branch managers. The reports highlight high-risk candidates, and I ensure that managers are aware of these individuals before considering placement.

“Although many companies in the temp staffing world don’t want to add anything to delay the hiring process, we recognize the value in taking the time to hire the right people for our clients.“

“The state of the economy drove some of the need for pre-hire integrity testing,” added Bryan Schwartz , director of risk management, Risk Resources Group, Acrisure Mid-Atlantic.

Christy Najar, workers’ comp manager – safety & risk management, Total Productive Staffing dba Coast Personnel Services

“With high unemployment rates, many companies were just looking for warm bodies,” he said. “However, this organization maintained hiring discipline. Christy and the leadership team said this is worthwhile — this is a value-add to make sure that we hire the right people for our clients.”

The company also improved its client selection process, partnering only with organizations that demonstrate a strong safety focus. Guidelines were established for prospective customer visits, including mandatory jobsite safety analyses.

Claims management was enhanced through timely reporting of incidents and the use of triage nurses to assess treatment needs. The company emphasized constant communication with injured workers to prevent legal escalation.

A safety observation program was implemented, requiring weekly safety walk observations to check on temporary associates, identify hazards and take corrective action. An application was developed for easy submission of worksite safety assessments.

Employee safety surveys were introduced to give workers a voice on safety concerns. These surveys are sent to new hires and associates after three months on assignment, with immediate follow-up on any issues raised.

“In addition to conducting safety surveys and incorporating employee feedback, we have implemented a safety and employee recognition program to reward safe behaviors in the workplace,” said Najar. “This program is integrated into our overall safety initiatives.

“At specific client locations, our on-site staff are provided with a list of employees who have participated in the safety survey,” she added. “They are encouraged to acknowledge and praise these individuals as part of our safety incentive program. By consistently incorporating these elements into our safety program, we strive to maintain a strong safety culture across our diverse workforce.“

Success to Build On

TPS’s multifaceted approach to improving safety culture has yielded impressive results. The company saw a sharp reduction in incident frequency rates and loss rate.

Organization: Total Productive Staffing (dba Coast Personnel Services) * Location: Santa Clara, CA * Number of Employees: 1,500 * Category: At-Large

These improvements demonstrate the effectiveness of TPS’s comprehensive strategy in enhancing workplace safety for temporary associates. The company’s risk management team remains focused on continuous improvement, recognizing that cultivating a strong safety culture is an ongoing journey.

By prioritizing safety and implementing a range of innovative programs, Total Productive Staffing has not only improved its workers’ compensation performance but also created a safer work environment for its temporary associates. This commitment to safety has positioned TPS as a leader in responsible staffing practices within the temporary employment industry. &

The Theo Award celebrates its inaugural year, honoring 31 workers’ compensation programs for their excellence and service to workers across the nation. To learn more about the award and amazing qualities each winner possesses, visit here.

How Investing in Clinical Analytics Can Help Improve Patient Outcomes and Foster a Collaborative Approach in Workers’ Comp

Analyzing clinical data can help occupational medicine clinicians improve their practices and provide better care for injured workers.

By: Concentra | September 3, 2024

Occupational health providers are always looking for ways to improve care. Today, clinical data and new predictive analytic tools are helping occupational health clinicians streamline processes, develop tailored treatment plans, and improve outcomes. These tools can drive improved care coordination, help clinicians improve their treatment skills, and even determine when specialist intervention would benefit an injured employee. This can help clinicians build positive relationships with injured employees, which can lead to improved recoveries and high levels of patient satisfaction.

What Clinical Data Can Do

Geneva Giang, Senior Vice President of Clinical Analytics, Concentra

Clinical data can be applied throughout the patient journey to help drive better care outcomes.

Analytic models can be used to review and assess patient files to determine whether an injured employee may be at risk for missing appointments. Then, clinicians, adjusters, or other stakeholders can step in and implement interventions to help the injured employee stay on their treatment path.

Machine learning models can rapidly process and audit a clinician’s notes, providing information and insights to improve documentation and practice patterns. These tools can also help detect when an injured employee might need more attention and when it might be advantageous or necessary for a specialist referral.

“Our first machine learning model gives us a heads-up when a patient is likely to cancel or miss their appointment. These predictive analytics enable us to identify trends or factors that potentially preclude an injured employee from showing up or consistently following our clinician’s recommendation. Knowing this allows us to step in and contact the patient or the employer to encourage the employee’s compliance,” said Geneva Giang, senior vice president of clinical analytics at Concentra.

“It’s a much more effective and efficient way to audit charts, to understand individual practice patterns, and to achieve optimal patient outcomes,” said John Anderson, executive vice president and chief medical officer at Concentra.

“We are training the model to understand the appropriate behavior in terms of when specialist intervention is most appropriate,” Giang added. “It’s the clinician that makes the decision. It’s not the machine.”

Using Data to Reveal Opportunities for Learning

John Anderson, Executive Vice President, Chief Medical Officer, Concentra

Analyzing a clinician’s referral patterns can reveal knowledge gaps and opportunities for learning and improving skill sets in certain areas, e.g. eye injuries, lacerations, minor fractures, etc.

“We’re able to identify individual clinicians’ practice patterns,” Anderson said. “We can then sit down with them and have a discussion. Maybe they need a refresher on orthopedics or their confidence in treating eye or other injuries. Maybe managing return to work could be improved. The data provides empirical evidence of the clinician’s practices. This information can be used by the medical director to direct a clinician to seek ongoing training and continuing medical education.

“Everyone going into medicine has committed to lifelong learning, and the information gained from machine learning can be used to focus clinicians on areas that will result in continuous improvements in the quality of care we provide to injured employees. We give our clinicians the building blocks and the motivation to take them to that next level,” Anderson said.

Why a High-Caliber Analytics Team Makes a Difference

Giang joined Concentra in 1995. Since then, Concentra has been committed to using data and evolving analytic tools such as machine learning and natural language processing to refine and advance its clinical model. The results speak for themselves. The company used these tools to improve patient care and shorten the time it takes to get injured employees back to their pre-injury levels of function.

Concentra’s data science and analytics team consists of highly skilled technological professionals and analysts who understand how to analyze and interpret data and share insights with clinicians to drive optimal clinical outcomes.

“Our team looks at information and tells a story. We work to understand both individual and group practice patterns to be able to evaluate trends,” Giang said.

How Analytics Can Foster a Collaborative Approach in Workers’ Comp

“It is our job to focus on continually evolving in response to the changing dynamic of patient behavior, but also to have a positive impact on all of our clients, be they employers, payers or the patients,” Giang said.

The company is working to digitize its data so clients can easily consume and electronically incorporate it into their systems to better understand how a care-first model can improve claims outcomes and reduce costs.

“We’re investing a great deal to digitize all of our data so that we can share it with the employer and payer directly,” Anderson said.

“When we do what’s best for the injured employee in terms of providing optimal care of their injury or illness, everybody benefits. The patient benefits, the payer benefits, the employer benefits, the community benefits, and the patient’s family benefits. Our focus is on getting the injured employee treated and restored to their previous pre-injury level of function as quickly as possible by breaking down any barriers or delays that would slow that down. Our ability to improve care and outcomes is made possible from information provided by our clinical analytics and data science team.”

To learn more, visit: https://www.concentra.com/

This article was produced by the R&I Brand Studio, a unit of the advertising department of Risk & Insurance, in collaboration with Concentra. The editorial staff of Risk & Insurance had no role in its preparation.

Concentra® is America’s leading provider of occupational health services, delivering work-related injury care, physical therapy, and workforce health services from nearly 550 Concentra medical centers and more than 150 onsite clinics at employer locations nationwide.

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