Creating a Resource for Workers' Comp Pilot Participants
Megan Gale
The Pilot ended (October 2019). It was successful.
If you an LAc treating WA state workers’ comp cases, contact WAEMA and support their practitioner-centered work.
To register for the program and get the latest program details, contact WA State L&I acupuncture program lead, Zachary Gray, MPH, and team.
keywords: projects, resources, workers' comp, return-to-work model, documentation standards
For the last few months, I have been creating a Documentation Toolkit as a resource for my fellow WA state EAMP colleagues. This is intended as a supplement resource for practitioners enrolled in the new WA State L&I Acupuncture Pilot. It is a work-in-progress and I will link to the course when it is more refined.
However, there are some outgoing expenses for the worker's comp Practitioner resource. If you are interested in supporting this specific project, you can donate to WEAMA, the nonprofit state professional organization that has been spearheading this work for the last 5+ years. To donate, please go to the WEAMA webpage and tag "for Megan's L&I Resource" in the comments section of your online donation. Donations to WEAMA are tax-deductible.
Here is the update I posted on another page:
Happy Autumn! Our family is still here in the Pacific Northwest. Military family life is about "making plans and then making plans again and then going back to plan A or C" someone probably once said.
We are enjoying the cool weather and the transition back to school for my oldest.
In my last post, I mentioned my volunteer professional work with creating supportive materials for L&I Pilot Project participants was taking up a significant portion of my time. The work has continued and hope to unveil the link to my first online course, "Practitioner Perspective" at the state professional association meeting (Washington East Asian Medicine Association) on Sunday, October 22nd, at Bastyr University in Kenmore, WA.
The resource I created is a documentation toolkit to support Practitioners involved in the WA state Workers' Comp Acupuncture Pilot to be successful by reviewing professional documentation standards in our field, with introduction to the return-to-work/rehab model and how Acupuncturists fit into it, and resources, with examples, on how to collect a few specific functional measures.
There are outgoing expenses associated with creating this Resource. If you know someone, a professional, or a business that would like to donate toward this specific project, donations are accepted through Washington East Asian Medicine Association (WEAMA) at the donation page. Caveat: for the money to go toward the project, you must tag "for L&I project" in the comments field of your donation. WEAMA is a 501c6 non-profit.
Thank you for sharing this post!
Megan
2020 update
Learn more about how this project began and progressed at the following links:
Alumna Expands Workers' Comp Coverage for Acupuncture Treatment, Inside Bastyr, 2018 spring: 2.
WEAMA, which later changed its name to WAEMA, has a series of blogpost updates about the Pilot.
Systematic Review of Acupuncture for Low Back Pain: Efficacy and Clinically-Meaningful Change (2018)
Taylor-Swanson L, Stone J, Gale M, Gaitaud A, Huson C, McPherson F, Martens J, Godwin J, and Yule M: Systematic Review of Acupuncture for Low Back Pain: Efficacy and Clinically-Meaningful Change. Meridians: JAOM, 2018 5(3): 18-24, 38-39.
public access article at this website
For more narrative about this process, go to this citation:
Taylor-Swanson L and Gale M: Making the Case for Workers' Compensation: Acupuncture for Low Back Pain. Meridians: JAOM, 2018 5(3): 16-17.
2021 update
Functional Rehab Model & LAcs
If you are interested in the functional rehabilitation model of care for your integrative health pain management program, contact the HHP to schedule a consult.
If you are interested in learning more about this model, we have some published resources that play key roles within a larger program. Here are some that are available (as of 2021):
How to use a validated Pain Scale in Your Chart Note, focus on the biopsychosocial model of clinical care
Tips for Charting & Coding in Hospital-based Practice—go to the “Functional Rehabilitation Model” set of lectures. This course is only available to Tier 2 HHP community members.
Why Telehealth? What could a patient-centered integrative health telehealth program look like? Video presentation, stand-alone. Lays the introduction for the June 2020 Telehealth Roundtable Event the HHP hosted.
Interested in what a team-care interdisciplinary functional rehabilitation model clinic with integrative health providers looks like? Listen to the recordings and extra content and resource pdfs of the May 2021 session with my LAc colleague from the Interdisciplinary Pain Management Clinic I once worked at. This is the model of a clinic that fits (and goes beyond) what WA state L&I calls a Center of Healthcare Excellence (COHE). Learn more about how you can access the recording and extra content from this Issues in Hospital-based Practice event here.
What is the COHE model?
The WA Health Care Authority (health policy) resource page on “what is a Center of Excellence (COE)?”
Centers of Excellence (COE) use evidence-based best practices as recommended by the Bree Collaborative.
for a deeper dive into the Bree Collaborative’s work and how it influences state & federal health policy and pain management programs, join the HHP community discussion platform at Tier 2 and dive into our Quality Assurance (QA) & Quality Improvement (QI) resource(s).
Team-based care and team communication
As related to LAcs—see episode 4 “Team communication” in the Basics of Being an Employee in a Healthcare System interview series. In need of sponsorship/financial support to send the multi-video series to the video editor before we can publish it.
In general, see the videos on “team huddles” and “SBAR” in our Lunchtime Listens YouTube playlist.
Safety & Daily Huddles with UC Davis Health
Team Huddle from the University of Michigan
How to Huddle (10 minutes), VHA PACT
Morning Huddle example with the Everett Clinic
SBAR Tool Overview from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)
Example of using SBAR communication in a quick provider to provider check-in