§ Third, and most significant, contract signed with Monash Health
§ Referral and partial funding from leading workers’ compensation insurer Allianz
§ Six figure, 8-month contract
Melbourne, Australia – 19 November, 2015: Medical device company dorsaVi Ltd (ASX: DVL) today announced it has signed its third OHS contract with Monash Health, one of Victoria’s largest health services providers, to minimise the impact of workplace manual handling tasks undertaken by its nursing staff. The six figure, 8-month contract, is the largest contract signed with Monash Health.
There is a three way commercial arrangement between Monash Health, major global workplace insurer Allianz and dorsaVi.
Manual lifting and other patient handling tasks are high-risk activities for both nurses and patients, and the prevalence of work-related back injury in nursing is amongst the highest of any profession in the world. In a study conducted at an Australian hospital, manual handling activities and injuries among nurses were assessed with 40.1% reporting an injury associated with manual handling activity, and of those 75.9% comprised back injury.
dorsaVi first carried out a significant round of assessments, followed by in-depth analysis and consultative workshops in 2014, with the aim of reducing workplace injuries. A further project was initiated at the beginning of 2015 to source and test a range of engineered solutions aimed at assisting workers involved in various manual handling tasks and reducing the potential injury for the work areas assessed. In this new contract, dorsaVi will work with Monash Health to implement these successful, innovative and measurable changes to its current OHS model while delivering a methodology to support the other suppliers and activities involved in these strategic changes.
dorsaVi’s ViSafe™ workplace solutions monitors and assesses movement and muscle activity, helping workers optimise their physical work to prevent injury. ViSafe™ monitors workers to provide an assessment of the movement of their lower back, shoulder elevation and relevant muscle activity.
Head of Workplace Health and Safety at Monash Health, Kim Flanagan said: “Manual handling is common place for our nursing and care staff, and we have always sought new initiatives to reduce the physical burden of their work. For the first time, we are able to assess manual activities in which we can intervene or change, through insights from real time, accurate data that can help us make the right decisions for our employees.”
Mark Heaysman, dorsaVi Group OHS and Compliance Business Manager said: “We welcome the opportunity to continue our relationship with Monash Health. As an employer of over 15,000 health services workers, they are one of the largest specialist teams, and are leading the healthcare industry in addressing the physical stresses of the manual work they carry out with many of their patients.”
“We have worked closely over the last 18 months with both Monash Health and Allianz to provide comprehensive data analysis to inform important initiatives to a business that has a large manual handling element to its work. As a result, Monash Health is creating a workplace that is leading the world in adopting an innovative and technology driven intervention to workplace injury.”
dorsaVi’s ViSafe solution uses wearable technology, sensors and mobile app technology to help organisations track and analyse the movement of their workers to assess and manage risk. At the core of the system are its wearable sensors, which are a similar size to a small USB thumb drive, that attach to any part of a person’s body to objectively measure human movement, assess the level of risk associated with that movement and turn it into actionable data.
Dr Andrew Ronchi, dorsaVi Chief Executive Officer concluded: “ViSafe and dorsaVi Workplace Solutions offers unique insights as to where higher risk areas exist in occupational environments. It is essential to have worker’s safety at the forefront of every step we take in ensuring Monash Health is able to create a safer workplace.”
About dorsaVi
dorsaVi (ASX:DVL) is an ASX company focused on developing innovative motion analysis device technologies for use in elite sports, occupational health and safety, and clinical applications. dorsaVi believes its wearable sensor technology enables – for the first time – many aspects of detailed human movement and position to be accurately captured, quantified and assessed outside a biomechanics lab, in both real-time and real situations for up to 24 hours.
Our technology has applications across three sectors:
• Clinical: ViMove is transforming the management of patients by providing objective assessment, monitoring outside the clinic and immediate biofeedback. ViMove is currently used by medical and physiotherapy practices in Australia and the United Kingdom and is now available in the United States following FDA 510K clearance.
• Elite Sports: ViPerform is allowing coaches and medical teams managing elite athletes and teams to screen athletes and provide objective evidence for decisions on return to play, measure biomechanics and provide immediate biofeedback out on the field, tailor and track training programs and optimise technique and peak performance. ViPerform is being used by AFL and NRL clubs in Australia, clubs in the Barclays Premier League, Australian and Victorian Institutes of Sport, various Olympic teams and athletes internationally, and Cricket Australia.
• OH&S: We combine innovation, measurement and quality to reduce workplace incidents, costs, meet compliance and improve brand reputation. ViSafe enables employers to assess risk of injury for employees as well as test the effectiveness of proposed changes to workplace design, equipment or methods based on objective evidence. ViSafe has been used by major corporations including Coles, Woolworths, Toll, Toyota, Orora (formerly Amcor), Crown and BHP Billiton. Australian Workplace Compliance delivers risk mitigation through compliance to OHS, Quality Management Systems, Company Policy and Process.
Further information is available at www.dorsavi.com
