Nuance to Numbers: Transforming Unstructured Physical Therapist Field Data to Structured Farm Task Data for an Injured/Ill Return to Work Software Application

Serious, restrictive, non-fatal injuries are commonplace in large animal agriculture including in pork and dairy production. Primary care clinicians often have few resources to facilitate workers’ return to work. This project will develop a return to work software program to produce applicable light duty job assemblies (LDJA).

The project will develop a compendium of agricultural tasks in dairy and pork production and design and pilot an interactive, clinically-guided software application, designed as a clinicians’ guide in return to work planning for injured dairy and pork workers, taking into account the limitations of the injured worker and the needs of the work place. One of the significant challenges is the integration of Physical and Occupational Therapists’ unstructured narrative data collection methods into structured data.

The project will utilize examples of representative pork and dairy facilities to describe workflow, feasibility and impact of returning workers into the various LDJA positions. This project closely links to several projects with a focus on injury and risk reduction in dairy production as part of the Upper Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center, whose overarching goal is to address health and safety issues faced by agriculture producers, workers, and their families in the Upper Midwest.