Emerge Diagnostics
EFA Wellness
Entering the wellness sector was a natural progression for Emerge Diagnostics Inc.
The Carlsbad, California-based company, which in 2011 began offering electrodiagnostic functional assessment, or EFA, tests to diagnose and identify the location, extent, nature and age of soft tissue injuries, saw an opportunity to use its resources to try to prevent injuries.
EFA Wellness, introduced this year, is part of the trend of seeking to identify health concerns before an injury occurs, said Mary Rose Reaston, Emerge Diagnostics’ co-founder, chief of operations and chief scientific officer.
“We found that workers comp is just a slice of the pie, because musculoskeletal disorders are a $50 billion annual spend in the U.S.,” Ms. Reaston said. “We would be remiss if we didn’t enter into the wellness space.”
Emerge Diagnostics’ telemedicine technology can be used to diagnose musculoskeletal conditions of any muscle group, with a focus on back, neck, shoulder and extremities, and can identify repetitive-stress injuries from afar using telemedicine technology involving sensors, Ms. Reaston said.
The wellness program then directs the worker to a fitness program — the company partners with several online programs — to help improve the worker’s mobility and strength, which can help prevent a workers compensation claim, Ms. Reaston said.
EFA Wellness, which helps reduce potential misdiagnoses and prevent unnecessary or inappropriate surgeries and treatments, provides a good baseline on worker health, she said.
The program can also be used to address a significant issue in the workers comp sector: aging workers, Ms. Reaston said.
Aging workers tend to recover slower than younger workers, according to workers comp claims data, and identifying and treating issues early — a cornerstone of EFA Wellness — could be a better solution than a wait-and-see approach following an injury, she said.
“There’s been a shift in medicine,” she said of the trend away from treating diseases to attempting to prevent them. “That’s where our wellness program fits in,” she said.
Providing guidance and service after the assessment is an important element that goes beyond tradition wellness initiatives, Ms. Reaston said. “If you just give somebody a wellness evaluation, if you give somebody just bloodwork … then it’s, ‘What do I do with it?,’” she said.