Location: Lancaster General Health Campus

The Industrial Rehabilitation team of Lancaster General Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation is dedicated to returning injured workers to full function in the shortest time possible. Our philosophy of treating employees as industrial athletes benefits both employer and employee. Employees will know that the employer is providing the best treatment available, and the employer can be assured that the employee is receiving a treatment plan customized to the needs of their particular industry.

Our therapists work with your employee one-on-one. We have the latest technology at our fingertips, but it’s the personal touch and relationships we have with our patients that will impress your employees the most.

Pre-Placement Screens & Ergonomics

The adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is also applicable to the work place. Many area companies have taken advantage of our expertise to screen potential employees for ability or inability to perform essential job functions or to help them identify and resolve problem areas in the manufacturing environment.

When necessary, therapists will come on site to analyze job functions and design a test to measure an applicant’s ability to perform the essential job tasks in an ergonomically safe manner. Whether you base your hiring decision on this information or not, it is good to know where injuries are likely to occur. In many cases we’ll actually use tools or objects from the work site so that our screening tests can mimic the actual job as closely as possible.

Functional Capacity Evaluations & Ergos

As the name suggests, Functional Capacity Evaluations (FCEs) are used to determine the physical abilities of individuals who have had an injury and are perhaps having a difficult time returning to previous levels of function. Most FCEs conducted today are performed with a therapist and are based on observations and interpretations of various tasks the therapist designs. One of the pitfalls of this type of testing is that evaluations can vary significantly from one therapist to another.

At Lancaster General Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation we have a tool that can remove the ambiguity from Functional Capacity Testing. The ERGOS Work Simulator allows us to evaluate employees based on national and international standards of Methods-Time Measurement and the National Institute of Occupational Safety & Health.

ERGOS is a four-panel computerized machine that duplicates various movements and motions of real world jobs. It measures strength, speed and cognitive ability. The work simulator’s computer provides all patient task instructions while taking detailed measurements of job performance. The computer then generates a printed evaluation, which details ability, consistency of effort and expected hourly work tolerance during an eight hour day.

The test is extremely useful in cases where litigation is underway or expected. It is also often used for employees with long-term injuries who genuinely want to return to a productive position but are unsure of what positions are within reach.

Work Hardening/Conditioning

Work conditioning is also available at Lancaster General Medical Services at Willow Lakes. Work Hardening refers to the process of returning an injured worker to a prior level of function in the position occupied prior to the injury. The Work Hardening program teaches proper bio-mechanics, builds endurance, and helps the worker break bad work habits. Clients in our program clock in on a time clock as if they were attending a regular work day. They then go through a gradual warm up routine before the “real work” begins.

Clients often need work-related activities to prepare physically and mentally for return to work. Our specially trained occupational therapists duplicate the basic elements of the job (strength and endurance) and work on those elements until all necessary job skills are attained. Traditional exercises improve fitness but may not strengthen the appropriate muscle groups for the job.