For Immediate Release
Three New Projects Totaling Nearly $700,000 Aim to Improve Workers' Compensation Medical Care
Worcester, MA, November 1, 1999-- Three new grants totaling $698,844, intended to improve the quality of medical care provided to persons with occupational injuries and illnesses, were announced today. The grants were made under the auspices of the Workers' Compensation Health Initiative, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Since its inception in 1995, the initiative has made 21 grants totaling approximately $6 million. The Workers' Compensation Health Initiative supports the development of innovative models for delivering and financing medical care under workers' compensation insurance, and research projects to examine that medical care system.
"These new grant awards draw upon insights gained during the first 4 years of our initiative concerning techniques for enhancing and measuring the quality of care provided to injured workers," commented program director Jay Himmelstein, MD, MPH, Assistant Chancellor for Health Policy at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. "We have learned that the best results can be obtained when all the key stakeholders-- workers, employers, health care providers, insurers, and regulators-- can have access to credible information and data about workers' compensation medical care and quality-of-care strategies. We anticipate that all three of these new projects will help make that kind of information more readily available."
"Two of the new grants support the development of model state-agency based resource centers for the improvement of workers' compensation medical care in Rhode Island and California," explained Allard Dembe, ScD, deputy director of the Initiative. "The third is a planning and feasibility study to facilitate the eventual creation of a national interstate research database for workers' compensation medical care." According to Dembe, "these new initiatives will establish a foundation for allowing information about the quality of medical care for injured workers to be more easily identified and disseminated."
Projects previously supported through the Workers' Compensation Health Initiative have included 24-hour medical care plans that cover both work-related and non-occupational cases, the creation of new techniques for managing work disability, the development and evaluation of medical practice guidelines for work-related disorders, the formation of community- and union-based coalitions to enhance WC health care, innovative approaches to case management for workplace injuries, and a nationwide effort to develop a set of standardized performance measures for WC managed care organizations. Recipients of grants have included state government agencies, community coalitions, private health care systems, professional societies, labor unions, employers, and research organizations.
"Several states recently have enacted workers' compensation reform legislation, and various strategies are being tried in order to control medical costs. But we still need to address the underlying issue of helping injured workers get timely, appropriate medical care," said Michael Rothman, senior program officer at the Foundation. "These projects reflect the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's continuing commitment to ensuring that all Americans have the opportunity to obtain high-quality care."
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, located in Princeton, New Jersey, was established as a national philanthropy in 1972 and today is the largest U.S. Foundation devoted to health care. The Foundation's primary mission is to improve the health and health care of all Americans. Its grantmaking activities are concentrated in three areas:
- to assure that all Americans have access to basic health care at reasonable cost;
- to improve care and support for people with chronic health conditions; and
- to reduce the personal, social, and economic harm caused by substance abuse--tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs.
Grantees (Project listed by Lead Agency)