Assessing Our Home Assessments Through Q&A

A significant injury or illness is never a welcome circumstance. However, for thousands of Canadians, such an occurrence is an inevitability that requires significant rehabilitation. Naturally, time must be taken from work to battle such hardships, as a person’s health always comes first. This is why before a person returns to work, he or she must take the very important steps to ensure that the return to work is done at the appropriate time.

At Independence Incorporated, we offer Home Assessments as one of our many services. It’s important that individuals are able to perform all of the necessary functions that are required for living in their homes before they are able to get back on the job. As part of our assessments, we address issues such as accessibility and stressors – both actual and perceived. We also look to determine the number of responsibilities that may affect a person’s ability to handle everyday tasks.

Once an appropriate home assessment has been completed, we are better able to gauge whether or not a person who has sustained an injury or illness that has kept him or her from work is able to return to the job. As you can imagine, there are a number of questions that need to be both asked and answered in order to make the right decision. At Independence Incorporated, we seek to complete thorough examinations by performing a Q&A session.

Has there been a significant change in the working conditions? Depending on the amount of time that a person has taken off of work, there may have been some changes to the job itself. It’s important for us to determine if those changes are ones that can be handled by the returning employee. We seek to discover if there are any limitations that the employee may have before green-lighting the way back to the workplace.

Can the job at work be modified? In some cases – even when the working conditions may have remained the same – the returning worker may have some of those limitations we mentioned. If so, we seek to discover if any modifications can be made at the workplace to make the transition back to work more comfortable for the employee. It’s also important to know if further physiotherapy or other forms of rehabilitation are necessary.

Has there has been a change in the employee’s health? There are times when an injury can significantly change a person’s health. After all, rehabilitation can certainly take a toll on a person. So while an injury may be healed, the employee may still require other methods of recovery in order to achieve greater strength, energy and endurance levels. Before one can return to work, he or she clearly needs to be healthy enough to do so.

Is there a new medical condition that may limit a returning worker’s effectiveness? If an employee’s health has changed, the job description for that employee may need to change as well. In some cases, a person can return to work, but not necessarily to do the same tasks that were asked of him or her before the injury or illness took place. If a limitation reduces or prevents a person from performing a job effectively, a new position may be a better fit.

Can the employee safely return to work? There are, of course, those situations when an employee is simply not healthy enough to return to a job in any capacity. Further rehabilitation is necessary in order to get a person to a state of readiness. And this is very important. Returning an employee to the workplace before he or she is capable of doing the work is bad for both the business and the employee. A home assessment helps greatly to make the right decision.

Of course, there are a variety of other questions that we answer to make sure an employee is ready to return to the job. For more information about our Home Assessments, please feel free to call us at 204-478-6644.