The purpose of this whitepaper is to help:

• Define federal pregnancy legislation, starting with anti-discrimination laws and then moving on to job and benefit protection, and reinstatement rights

• Clarify current state legislation, including a state by state comparison of requirements, entitlements and benefits

• Overview the movement for wage replacement for pregnancy

• Review employers’ legal obligations when providing leave for pregnancy

Like many student athletes, Kevin was first introduced to the world of athletic training by sustaining an injury. After playing baseball for all his life, he suffered a multi ligament knee injury his senior year of high school. A born athlete, he needed to find a way to restore function, so he took the initiative and set up times to meet with the school’s athletic trainer. Working together, he was able to reach his goal of being back on the field for the post season without any long term residual effects, which sparked his interest in the healing process. What was initially seen as an untimely injury would eventually set the stage for both his academic and professional career.

“I always wanted to do something that helped people, whether it be as a doctor, a physical therapist, or an athletic trainer,” he says. “I wanted to help people reach their goals in the face of adversity. By being an athlete myself, athletic training seemed to be the perfect balance.”

Today, Kevin is an Associate Athletic Trainer at Stanford University, working with the women’s soccer team in the fall and men’s volleyball team in the spring. With 35 varsity sports and over 800 student athletes, the athletic training rooms at Stanford are never without action. The 14 resident athletic trainers can see up to 450 students a day.

In an unplanned turn of events, Kevin has also become the IT liaison for athletic training. While he never pursued IT academically or professionally, he has a keen sense of how to maximize technology and the creativity needed to put it in perspective. “I think the everyday occurrences that you take for granted with respect to computers and in terms of health information mobility definitely apply to athletic training,” says Kevin. “It was just a matter of putting two and two together and creating an opportunity for things to blossom.”

In fact, the relationship between sports medicine and IT and how to harmonize them better has become one of his greatest strengths and interests. “We’re so specialized and skilled and there is so much just sitting there, waiting to be explored by us,” he explains. “There’s still a big gap between IT and sports medicine and merging the two is really exciting. It’s unchartered territory for athletic training and I think it’s primed for a big explosion, especially with chronic illness and injuries at all time highs, it sets the stage for the profession of athletic training to fit in perfectly.”

So how did Kevin end up at one of the country’s most prominent athletic schools? After completing a bachelor degree in athletic training in his home state of California, he went on to have a healthy career as a pitcher in the minor leagues. Signed as a free agent with an independent organization, he put himself on the fast track, never spending more than one year in any given location. “Whether it was being traded or as a personal decision, to reach my goals in the sport I needed to expose myself,” he says. “Those five years took me to 80 to 90 percent of the country.” A journey that eventually led him to South Dakota where he finished his career playing in the prestigious Northern League. The successes he had experienced by that point, allowed him to walk away from the game on his own terms and into a graduate school program for athletic training.

While completing his master’s degree at San Jose State, he worked as a Graduate Assistant Athletic Trainer at Cal State Monterey Bay, which is where his professional sports medicine life began. With seven sports teams, there was only the head athletic trainer and himself. “It was really a great opportunity to learn about the business of college athletic training and exposed me to a lot of different aspects, rather than just the clinical side,” he recalls. “I was also exposed to the administrative side largely because there were just two of us and someone had to handle the injury tracking, secondary insurance billing, as well as medical direction for large community events.”

After completing his research, he accepted a position as an Assistant Athletic Trainer at Saint Mary’s College of California, where he worked with Scott Anderson, the Head Athletic Trainer at the time. “We really saw things similarly, as far as organizational management and what we saw as the utopic athletic training room, how it functions and how it works,” he says. Together the two were able to build what Kevin refers to a comprehensive and unique sports medicine program in respect to the resources that were provided to athletes and the relationship created with the school’s health center. Not surprisingly, when Scott left to accept the Head Athletic Trainer position at Stanford, it wasn’t long before he called Kevin to join him, with the plan to build a similar program. “I think at the time athletic training at Stanford was ripe for a makeover, it was ready to inject some new enthusiasm around athletic training and the role of an athletic trainer,” he says about his 2007 move. A key piece of this has been taking a more progressive approach towards sports medicine by implementing programs that for example identify athletes at risk of injury and analyze athletes’ health over their careers. Having met each other early in their careers and both still at Stanford today, Kevin has now been working with Scott for over 10 years.

From being healed in a “closet facility” with his own athletic trainer as a teenager, to a professional baseball career, to working in one of the most sought after athletic training rooms, Kevin has embraced the athletic world in all its forms and is still looking ahead. “There’s so much about athletic training that doesn’t involve taping an ankle. The best part of my job is I have the opportunity to help move the profession forward in a lot of unique and exciting ways.”

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Concerned about the proposed rule, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) is raising awareness about and encouraging members to take advantage of the opportunity to voice their opinions. As both members and supporters of SHRM’s stance, Presagia has submitted their suggested template, read the full text below:

“I am writing as a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) to comment on the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) notice of proposed rulemaking on the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) that was published in the Federal Register on February 15, 2012.  

On a daily basis, HR professionals must determine whether or not an employee is entitled to FMLA leave and must track an employee’s leave.  In addition, HR is tasked with determining how to administer FMLA eligibility and entitlement provisions fairly and consistently.  I am concerned that DOL is proposing to undo two improvements, added in the last FMLA rulemaking, strongly supported by the HR community.

The proposed rule changes the way employers would track FMLA leave when an employee uses intermittent or reduced schedule leave, eliminating an employer’s limited flexibility to utilize different increments of FMLA leave at different times of the day or shift.  I believe the existing provision is important for the ease in implementing FMLA leave.  It helps dissuade employees who use their intermittent leave to sidestep their employer’s attendance policies – to avoid disciplinary action for arriving late to work – and encourages employees to be more selective about when they take their leave.

DOL also proposes changes to section 825.205(a)(2) addressing situations where it is physically impossible for the employee to return to work, signaling that the agency may eliminate this provision altogether.  I urge DOL to keep the physical impossibility provision.  This provision is limited in its application and protects employees who only require a short increment of FMLA leave, but must miss additional time from work because it is physically impossible for them to return to work once the FMLA-protected need for leave is completed.

I urge DOL to clarify these provisions, rather than eliminate them.”

The deadline for submissions has been extended from April 16 to April 30. For more detailed information on the proposed changes visit www.dol.com or to find out how to send your own comment with SHRM’s template, www.shrm.com.

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Check out this case study to learn about Stanford’s use of Presagia Sports, the Athlete Electronic Health Record.

Referring to the legislative atmosphere in the United States today as complex is an understatement as most employers know. Say an employee has requested a leave under the FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act) to care for an injured spouse. Can you easily tell if the employee is eligibility? How do you calculate the employee’s leave entitlement? Presagia Enterprise helps you answer exactly these kinds of questions. It has a sophisticated leave rules engine that includes 400 state and federal leave laws and helpful wizards that guide you the leave process, step by step.

Presagia Enterprise is an integrated software solution for employers to manage leave, ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and Stay and Work/Return to Work, all while enhancing compliance.

Want to hear more? Watch the video below. Have questions or comments? We’d love to hear them!

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It’s an annual occurrence in Montreal that once the snow melts and the grass reappears, people rush outside in full force to celebrate the shift in seasons. We were no less excited here at Presagia which is exactly why we decided to hold our quarterly staff meeting outside. Instead of our usual conference room, we headed to a nearby sugar shack, the beautiful L’Auberge des Gallant in Ste-Marthe.

Sugar shacks, also known as sugar houses, sugar cabins, or in French cabanes à sucre, are where sap is collected from nearby maple trees and boiled down to make maple syrup, taffy, sugar and butter. Quebec is the leading global producer of maple syrup  and with so many delicious sugar shacks in the surrounding area, it’s not surprising annual trips are such a tradition here.

That’s us on the right stuffing ourselves with traditional buffet style menu items like French pea soup, meat pie, maple syrup ham, sausages in maple beer, omelets, home baked beans, pancakes with syrup and upside down maple cake.

After our not so light, maple drenched lunch, we discussed sales, new partnerships, objectives and more all over some homemade taffy on ice. All in all a delicious afternoon!

Don’t want to miss a blog post? Drop us your email and we’ll keep you up to date on all the latest Presagia Enterprise blog news:

It’s an annual occurrence in Montreal that once the snow melts and the grass reappears, people rush outside in full force to celebrate the shift in seasons. We were no less excited here at Presagia which is exactly why we decided to hold our quarterly staff meeting outside. Instead of our usual conference room, we headed to a nearby sugar shack, the beautiful L’Auberge des Gallant in Ste-Marthe.

Sugar shacks, also known as sugar houses, sugar cabins, or in French cabanes à sucre, are where sap is collected from nearby maple trees and boiled down to make maple syrup, taffy, sugar and butter. Quebec is the leading global producer of maple syrup  and with so many delicious sugar shacks in the surrounding area, it’s not surprising annual trips are such a tradition here.

That’s us on the right stuffing ourselves with traditional buffet style menu items like French pea soup, meat pie, maple syrup ham, sausages in maple beer, omelets, home baked beans, pancakes with syrup and upside down maple cake.

After our not so light, maple drenched lunch, we discussed sales, new partnerships, objectives and more all over some homemade taffy on ice. All in all a delicious afternoon!

Don’t want to miss a blog post? Drop us your email and we’ll keep you up to date on all the latest Presagia Sports blog news:

Nominated for the Sport and Exercise Team of the Year, this award recognizes those who have actively worked towards promoting physical activity while improving the care of athletes and medical services to the sporting community. This category was launched for the first time this year in honor of the London 2012 Olympics.

BHA’s nomination is directly related to the launch of Presagia Sports, which the BHA calls the Racecourse Injury Management Initiative (RIMANI). With RIMANI, the BHA now effectively captures, stores and manages important health data for all of their jockeys while providing an online collaborative space for their approximately 240 doctors working at more than 60 race courses. The BMJ Group has acknowledged the value in tracking any and all jockeys who are ill, injured or get injured on a race day in real-time and the ability to review such information on a daily basis. It took carefully thought out planning and a hardworking team to implement RIMANI, and we think the BMJ has chosen wisely.

The award ceremony will take place May 23rd in London, England. We’ll be sure to keep you all posted when the results are announced but until then good luck BHA!
 

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• Explore the differences between Athlete EHRs and general patient EHRs
• Learn key features to examine when searching for the right system
• Review HIPAA and how Athlete EHRs can enhance compliance through unique security measures
• Receive tips on how to choose the right product vendor

This is the first of a three part series. Send us an email at info@presagia.com to be added to our mailing list to make sure you don’t miss the next whitepaper in this important series.