Former WSIB executive to illustrate important role of research evidence in reforming complex work disability policy

October 9, 2015 (Toronto, Ontario)—Over the past decade, Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) has made major changes to both its case management and vocational rehabilitation services. Its aim was to improve services to injured workers and employers and to improve outcomes for workers disabled by a work-related injury or illness. According to the WSIB, these reforms have been successful, having prevented more than two million lost work days annually in Ontario.

Judy Geary, who as a member of the WSIB executive team led the design and implementation of these reforms, attributes the success of these changes in part to their incorporation of findings from international research on effective practices in work disability prevention. As this year’s speaker at the Institute for Work & Health’s annual Alf Nachemson Memorial Lecture, Geary will tell the story of how these complex policy changes came about and what she learned in integrating research evidence in the reform of valued public services.

The 2015 Nachemson lecture takes place on Thursday, October 29 in Toronto. This year’s lecture will also mark the Institute’s 25th anniversary as a not-for-profit research organization dedicated to promoting, protecting and improving the safety and health of working people.

Full details are below:

Judy Geary
2015 Alf Nachemson Memorial Lecture
Using research evidence to help prevent work disability in Ontario
Thursday, October 29, 2015, 5.00 p.m.
Design Exchange, 2nd Floor
234 Bay Street, Toronto, Ontario

The event is open to all, but registration is required. To register: www.iwh.on.ca/nachemson-lecture/form

Media are welcome to attend the event. Please register online or contact Cindy Moser or Uyen Vu (see contact information below).

The annual Alf Nachemson Lecture was established by IWH in 2002 to honour the significant contribution of Dr. Nachemson, a distinguished orthopaedic surgeon and researcher from Sweden and a founding member of the Institute’s Scientific Advisory Committee, to the use of research evidence in clinical decision-making. Dr. Nachemson passed away in 2006, and the lecture was renamed the Alf Nachemson Memorial Lecture. The annual lecture has become one of the most important and popular networking events of the year in Ontario for policy-makers, researchers, professionals, advocates and other stakeholders in the field of work injury and disability prevention. For more information on this year’s lecture, visit: www.iwh.on.ca/nachemson-lecture

IWH is an independent, not-for-profit research organization that aims to protect and improve the health of working people. Recognized as one of the top five occupational health and safety research centres in the world, the Institute provides practical and relevant findings on the prevention of work injury and disability to policy-makers, workers, employers, clinicians, and health, safety and disability management professionals: www.iwh.on.ca