Quality improvement in health-care services for injured workers

Lecture starts 5:30 p.m.
Reception 6:30 p.m.

Design Exchange
234 Bay Street, 2nd Floor
Toronto, Ontario

Thomas Wickizer
University of Washington

For the 2008 Nachemson Memorial Lecture, Dr. Thomas Wickizer will discuss how Washington State has improved the quality of health care in its workers’ compensation system. He will describe the evolution of these efforts since 1995, leading to a major system intervention that provided financial incentives to physicians and introduced structural changes in the workers’ compensation health-care delivery system. An evaluation of this intervention indicates these changes are associated with reductions in disability for injured workers, and decreased costs. Dr. Wickizer will also speak about the importance of collaboration among researchers, the state’s Department of Labor and Industry, and business and labour stakeholder groups in order for research to influence policy.

About presenter

Dr. Wickizer is Professor of Health Services at the University of Washington’s School of Public Health and Community Medicine in Seattle. In 1997, he was awarded the Rohm and Haas Distinguished Professorship in Public Health Sciences.

About the Alf Nachemson Memorial Lecture

The annual Alf Nachemson Memorial Lecture honours the significant contribution of Dr. Alf Nachemson to the use of research evidence in clinical decision-making. Dr. Nachemson was a distinguished orthopaedic surgeon and researcher from Sweden, and a founding member of the Institute for Work & Health’s Scientific Advisory Committee.  The lectureship is awarded to a prominent national or international individual who has made a significant and unique contribution to evidence-based practice or policy-making in the prevention of work-related injury, illness or disability.