Program > Friday > 15:15 > Session 8. Topics in workers' compensation

Paper: Examining trends in the incidence and cost of workers’ compensation claims

Author(s) and Affiliation(s):
Cameron A. Mustard, Institute for Work & Health, Toronto, Ontario
Peter Smith, Institute for Work & Health, Toronto, Ontario
Emile Tompa, Institute for Work & Health, Toronto, Ontario
Jeremy Petch, Institute for Work & Health, Toronto, Canada
Mieke Koehoorn, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia
Chris McLeod, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia
Session : 8. Topics in workers' compensation
Day/Time: Friday at 15:15
Room: St. David Room, 3rd Floor
Objectives:

The goal of this study is to examine trends over time in compensation claim activity and benefit expenditures for work-related health conditions among employees in the long-term care sectors in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Ontario over the period 1998-2007. The study has a particular interest in understanding the influence policy initiatives in the two provinces on practices within the long-term care sector related to the prevention of work-related injury and illness and practices related to the management of work disability. The study focuses in a single health-care sector, long-term care, to ensure comparability of job characteristics, occupational exposures and workplace organization.

Methods:

The project will compare the patterns of lost-time and no-lost-time compensation claim reporting in the long-term care sectors in British Columbia and Ontario over the period 1998-2007 and compare the nature of injury and source of injury for workers receiving lost-time compensation benefits over time in these two provinces. In addition, the project will compare workers’ compensation expenditures over the period 1998 – 2007 for long-term care sector workers. The duration of disability episodes, wage replacement benefits (in the case of lost-time claims) and health-care expenditures (for both lost-time and no-lost-time claims) will be described. Data sources for the study will be drawn from administrative records of workers’ compensation claims, supplemented by a detailed inventory of key changes to legislation, policy and programs in each province over the 10-year observation period.

Results:

Preliminary findings will be reported, drawn from the mid-point of this 24-month research project. There are more than 60,000 full-time equivalent workers in Ontario and 14,000 full-time equivalent workers in British Columbia. Staff-to-bed ratios in the two provinces are very similar. While there appears to be a higher incidence of work-related injuries in the British Columbia long-term care sector relative to the province of Ontario, the distribution of nature and source of injury is similar. Preliminary findings suggest longer durations of disability among workers receiving wage replacement benefits in British Columbia and a strong temporal trend towards shorter disability durations in Ontario.

Conclusions:

There appear to be important differences between Ontario and British Columbia in the duration of disability arising from work-related injuries among workers in long-term care.