Managing Musculoskeletal Injury Risks with Wearable Technology
Amy O’Connor — Chief Growth Officer, Preventure
The costliest Workers’ Compensation claims, after serious injury and death, are musculoskeletal back, shoulder, and lower limb injuries. Until recently, the only way that safety professionals could manage this risk was through subjective, option-based assessments and one-size-fits-all manual handling training programs.
Enter Wearable Technology.
Originally used in elite sports, to keep athletes performing at their peak, wearables have now found their way into the workplace. Small sensors can be placed on the back, arm, or other limbs, to measure movement data and quantify injury risk.
Smartphone apps are then used to collect accompanying video, and to deliver instant ‘movement coaching’ alerts to workers when they move in a way that puts them at risk. They are also used to deliver insights back to frontline teams in the form of short training modules.
Put simply, technology is now allowing companies to better understand the risk profile of their workforce, and to provide bespoke injury prevention training to individuals. In the same way that professional sports coaches deliver customised injury prevention programs for every player in their team.
Wearable Technology is also now being used in return-to-work. To reduce the risk of re-injury by providing validated movement data and video to the medical teams that are making decisions around ‘light duties’ and work capacity. And, by measuring the daily movements of a worker as they return to full duties.
The Lucidity Software team recently met with Preventure for a demo of their platform. The two snippets below will help you understand how the technology is being used to help companies across ANZ and North America;
- Remote Task Assessments with Objective Data
2. Workers Have Different Movement Habits & Risk Profiles
For a demonstration of the Preventure platform, and to learn about the affordable trial packages on offer, contact hello@preventure.live and mention Lucidity Software.