Project Results

Public Policy Goal:

To promote improvements in the quality and outcomes of care provided to patients with work related illnesses and injuries in Maine using the framework of a state-wide health care study group.

Project Description:

To promote improvement in the quality and outcomes of care provided to patients with work related illnesses and injuries as well as the conservation of costs through the creation of a stakeholder study group; laying the foundation for the developments of a statewide workers' compensation database; and the implementation and testing of a functional outcomes assessment tool.

Key Findings or Accomplishments:

Major findings of the project included:

1. Value exists in creating a community based coalition to work on issues like workers' compensation medical care improvement on a state-wide basis
2. It is important to obtain the buy-in and involvement of insurance carriers to develop a meaningful statewide data base
3. There is value and support in Maine for the development of a database that links WC and general healthcare information and this project cultivated an appreciation for the importance of valid, reliable, data and an understanding of the current lack of such data among constituents of the workers' compensation health care system.
4. Challenges to establishing a comprehensive database include:
   1. Governance (Should the database be public or private? Should the submission of data be voluntary or mandatory?)
   2. Funding (Who will pay to build and maintain it?)
   3. Access (Who can/should have access to the aggregated data and for what purpose?/Who decides?)
5. The Study Group decided:
   1. The Maine database submissions should be voluntary (even though the agency has regulatory authority to require mandatory reporting)
   2. Should be administered privately due to the sensitive and perhaps proprietary information it will contain
   3. Ongoing funding issues were not decided upon, nor were the costs of accessing data
   4. To continue the work on a comprehensive WC data base even after the grant ended
6. The use of health assessment tools as a predictor of health outcomes in the treatment of occupational injuries, not just in the measurement of the outcomes of such treatment is an innovative approach, but one that is difficult to implement.

Reports and Publications:

Documentation of Database Development Process, Maine Health Information Center (unpublished)

Future work:

Work on the construction of a database continues. The State of Maine and the Maine Employers Mutual Insurance Company (MEMIC) are working on a contractual basis with the Maine Health Information Center (MHIC) to manage their databases and to develop a better understanding of their utilization and cost experiences. Further, the MHIC is now linking data from the State employees' health care database with its workers' compensation data to develop a comprehensive overview of the use of services by employees.