TABLE 2.

Quality Impediments and Target Activities Undertaken by OHS Project to Address Impediments

Quality Impediment	Target Activities Performed to Address Impediment
• Infrequent use of best practices resulting in poor quality	• Tracking care through performance quality indicators relative to established quality benchmarks; providing mentoring, continuing medical education, and academic detailing*
• Ineffective disability prevention	• Initiating time-linked clinical management action to promote return to work; providing systematic patient reviews to assess barriers to return to work; following occupational health best practices
• Administrative delays	• Promoting timely submission of report of accident and improving provider documentation of work-relatedness to facilitate quicker claim authorization
• Poor communication among providers, employers, and administrative parties	• Initiating case coordination within local health care system; encouraging two-way communication between provider and employer; promoting more effective use of electronic communication
• Inadequate reimbursement and misaligned financial incentives	• Using financial incentives linked to quality indicators
• Heavy provider administrative burden	• Using case coordination to reduce provider's administrative burden
• Lack of patient care tracking data	• Developing information technology to track patients, coordinate data, and provide feedback to providers
• Lack of evidence-based care	• Using quality indicators; distributing treatment guidelines

*Academic detailing is a form of continuing medical education involving one-on-one training of the physician in his or her own office.