Pushing yourself to a healthy capacity

A new machine has been introduced at the Sidney Rehabilitation and Wellness Clinic with the purpose of helping employers as well as the health of employees.

Casey Cortney, owner and physical therapist at the Sidney Rehabilitation and Wellness Clinic, has purchased a Physical Capacity Profile Testing System.

This machine helps employees develop a baseline of their health before they begin working for a company. This helps ensure employers that they are placing their employees in a job that will minimize any potential injury.

The machine is the result of Dr. Gary Harbin, a sport medicine physician and orthopedic surgeon’s, research into ways to reduce on-the-job injuries. He eventually patented and introduced the Physical Capacity Profile Testing System after founding the Occupational Performance Corporation in 1988.

Cortney and her staff have been using the machine for approximately a year, testing it and making sure it is as effective and accurate of a machine as advertised.

The physical therapist said that approximately 100 people have used the machine and that the results have been great.

“We do it if a company is hiring a new employee to see what their physical status is and to make sure that they are physically capable of doing the job when they are hired,” she said. “We also can take the step if needed where if they are on the job and get injured and need medical attention and have had surgery and therapy, we can do a ‘fit for duty’ test before they return to work.”

Cortney said that the “fit for duty” test can reveal if an employee is capable of returning to work, and also see what health they are in after they got injured compared to their original baseline test.

She said that so far she has tested employees from Adams Industries and Commercial Resins, but has also talked with the City of Sidney about testing their employees as well.

“Nothing compares to this machine,” she said. “It’s very objective, comprehensive and accurate. There may be other systems out there but to my knowledge it’s one of the best.”

“It’s state of the art software that meets the criteria of the Department of Labor’s classifications of work, the American Medical Association Guidelines, the American Disabilities Act, and is HIPPA compliant and falls under EEOC audits and the Equal Opportunity Act,” said Joan Falcon, an LPN with a focus on industrial services who is working with Cortney.

Cortney said that she first learned about the Physical Capacity Profile Testing System (the PCP machine) when she was addressed by Jerry Keller, the Corporate Safety Director for Adams Industries and Commercial Resins, about purchasing one of the machines.

“Jerry had been researching something for their companies, not only to reduce their risk of injuries and work comp situations, but knowing that it is an up-and-coming thing with insurance agencies,” said Cortney. “Some insurance companies are requiring employers to do some sort of testing or they are giving a discount of premiums if you can prove you are doing this employment testing.”

“He approached me and I know there is a real need of expansion of industrial rehabilitation and industrial testing in this area and it’s an interest I have and want to grow in,” she said about her final purchase of the machine.

Keller, who oversees the safety of 14 of the gentlemen’s companies, said that he highly recommends the testing to any employer.

“About seven years ago I saw the PCP machine demonstrated at a Panhandle Safety Conference in Scottsbluff,” said Keller. “It seemed like a wonderful tool. A safety director’s job is to reduce the chances of injuries and also to limit the cost after injuries due to work comp claims. The major thing that the PCP machine does is it provides a baseline level of physical capacity that’s measured in a real objective manner rather than a subjective manner that could otherwise be tweaked.”

Keller said that the information provided by the machine will provide accurate information for doctors, employers, employees and insurance companies to go off of if an injury were to occur.

“It compares the maximum medical approval (MMA) rating after a person is injured and then they recuperate, and then they are given an MMA rating when they are ready to return to work,” he said. “When there is a loss in physical capacity determined to be caused by the work related accident then there’s an impairment rating given and the insurers have to pay the employee based on that perceived level of loss in physical capacity.

“By doing that and establishing a baseline when new employees start with a company, you’re actually getting a more accurate representation of the employees status when they are hired.”

The safety director said that the machine is not only a great tool for employers but also provides an employee with critical information that may save them from potential injury.

“PCP is a great tool for the benefit of an employee because you can also determine a person’s physical limits and in doing so you can place him in a job that he can physically perform.”

Keller said that without PCP machine testing essentially every employee is presumed to be perfectly healthy when they are hired, when really that may not be the case.

“I’ve seen that happen where new people come on to a job and maybe they shouldn’t have been hired,” he said.

The safety director also stressed that just because an employee has prior health restraints does not mean that they are not hired, but instead can be put into a position where they have to exert less force, and will only work as hard as their body will allow.

Cortney said that the testing procedures may be laborious, but they ensure a full health report.

“When we bring someone in that is going to be tested from a medical intake to physical strength tests, we progress through a series of tests,” said Cortney.

The whole medical information intake process and the physical tests take between 30 and 45 minutes to conduct, but the results are sent back electronically in a matter of minutes, according to the physical therapist.

“The testing information is wired to Kansas at a center there and they do calculations to get a report that we use,” she said. “Once it is sent we can get it back in minutes which is kind of nice for the employer.”

“We start with a medical intake and if we see that there is a reason why they shouldn’t go through with the tests we may not proceed with it and give them a medical release that they need to see a doctor to release them for the test,” she said.

The physical therapist said that issues like high blood pressure or acute pain would be reasons to not continue with the check-up.

“The person then takes a 10-minute breathing test called spirometry,” said Cortney. “We take their weight, heart-rate, blood pressure, a skin fold test for measuring body fat, and we do a hand-grip strength and a pinch strength test with their fingers.”

Then the patient is testedfor back flexibility and range of motion before proceeding to the machine for further examination.

“Then we have them come out to the machine and we position them with their arms and legs in different positions on the machine,” she said. “It’s an isometric pull against the machine by handles.”

Cortney said that the person will try turning different handles and will pull up on them while the computer software program calculates their strength.

“They simulate a lift and try and pull as hard as they can,” she said. “They are stationary so they are exerting their maximum effort.”

“Then we take them into the last phase of timed squats, sit-ups and a lift test,” said the physical therapist. “They start with 20 pounds and if they meet all the requirements for the test they can be lifting up to 100 pounds.”

Cortney said that the test results are correlated with the Department of Labor’s Five Physical Demand Categories.

The categories range from sedentary work (exerting up to 10 pounds of force occasionally) to very heavy work (exerting up to 100 pounds of force occasionally.)

“What will happen is we will get a job description from a company,” said Cortney. “The blue bar on the test results means that they are putting the job description into a certain level, like a level three, which means they have to do medium work.”

“The red line beside it will then show them what they actually achieved on the test. They may have achieved that level three but may also have achieved up to a level four which is heavy work,” she said. “This means yes, they have qualified to work at this level three, but they also could function in the job capacity of a little over level four.”

Cortney said this could be beneficial to a business that needs to shift workers around.

“Theoretically even with the testing there are always chances of getting hurt,but the risk is a lot lower if they follow the guidelines,” she said.

“The medical intake information gives the employers a little breakdown of some things they might have told us during the medical intake, like whether or not they have back problems,” said the physical therapist.

The results of the test as a whole give employers the employee’s impairment rating.

Cortney said that for example if there was a deficit in one arm or a person’s arm couldn’t function up to par, the testing would reveal such impairment.

“That’s important if they would get hurt on the job,” she said. “If they came to the job with lets say a 10 percent impairment rating on their back that was figured out by the test and they hurt their back again at work, we could look at the rating when they want to go back to work. We would retest and that would determine the workman’s comp. If the person has 12 percent impairment instead of just a 10 percent, the employers are only responsible for the 2 percent of new impairment.”

“I actually was fortunate enough to see a machine demonstration,” said Keller. “It’s very rigorous and a key part of the machine is that it can’t be fooled. You can’t come in and fake like your right arm is hurt. You can’t do that because you have to maximize your output. You have to do each of the different procedures and you have to do them three times and if you’re maximizing your output every time you’re going to get nearly identical scores.”

“You have to achieve within 5 percent of each of the three scores or the machine says it wasn’t an honest attempt. It’s impossible to fake the data,” he said.

Cortney said that she hopes other companies and businesses will see the importance of the employee testing and will try the machine.

“We’ll be looking at not only businesses in the Sidney and Cheyenne County area but maybe also within the 70 to 100 mile radius in the future,” she said. “It is expanding in the Midwest.”

Cortney says she welcomes companies or businesses with 2 employees to test or thousands.

“It’s a great adjunct for insurance purposes, injury reduction, decreasing work comp and establishing a baseline,” she said. “A lot of the craze right now is employee wellness. This would be a great thing to add into a company’s wellness program. Some of the people that have gone through this test here didn’t even realize they had problems.”

Cortney recommends anybody who would like to come in and see the machine or get a demo to come into the clinic located at 927 23rd Avenue in Sidney or to call 308-254-4979. She also encourages any employer or employee who would like to start testing or be tested to contact her.

The physical therapist said that information about the machine is also located at: http://www.pcpworks.com .

Registration for webinars are available on the site, as well as opportunities to watch live video and participate in conference calls, according to Cortney.