November

Although I’ve been aware of the benefits of public transit for a number of years, it really hit home this past month. I’ve had no choice but to ride transit because of a neck injury that has resulted in me wearing a neck brace 24 hours a day. I am thankful that public transit has been available. The more I ride it, the more I realize the benefits.

In response to requests from physicians and other health care pro­viders, WorkSafeBC has been compiling information on a wide range of evidence-based occupational medicine topics. The WorkSafeBC Evidence Based Practice Group, a Canadian Cochrane affiliate under the leadership of Dr Craig Martin, has been applying established techniques of critical appraisal and evidence-based medicine to select articles and sources and assigning levels of evidence as follows:

If you have an injured worker patient with an accepted WorkSafeBC claim, you may now refer them, without our pre-approval, to a community specialist for an expedited consultation on the medical condition or body part specifically indicated on the claim. Expedited consults are provided by most specialist categories, including psychiatry and dermatology.

Checking the status of a claim

The original Master Agreement was a complex document between the BCMA and provincial government, first entered into in 1993, that provided the parameters of the working relationship between physicians and government. It brought together essential components to ensure a balance existed between the needs of physicians who provide care and services to the people of British Columbia and the government that is responsible for managing the terms under which they acquire those services.