Pioneers in Occupational Health

SYSTOC Turns 20

OHR and Technological Advancements

Graphical Representation of Occupational Health Milestones

The practice of occupational medicine  has undergone significant change over the last two decades. Twenty years ago, Industrial Medicine (as it was then known) was practiced mostly by private physicians who combined the treatment of work injuries with family practice or urgent care. Since then, occupational medicine has grown to the point where most urban and many rural markets are served by one or more providers.

Pioneers in Occupational Health

Today, the typical occupational medicine practice is a hospital-based program offering a multi-site network, typically consisting of five or more clinics that are often dedicated exclusively to occupational medicine. Over 500 of these sites across the U.S. benefit from the technology and support of SYSTOC^® software. Introduced in 1981, SYSTOC was the first PC-based occupational health software application to hit the market. Its creator, William Newkirk, MD and Occupational Health Research (OHR) have long been recognized as pioneers in the field of occupational health, and as the industry has grown, SYSTOC has grown as well.

SYSTOC Turns 20

As OHR celebrates SYSTOC’s 20th Anniversary, we thought you might enjoy a brief stroll down memory lane. It all started in 1977 when the Redington Memorial Association, a charitable trust serving rural Maine, hired Dr. Newkirk to direct a project to control the runaway growth in workers’ compensation premiums. For the next three years Dr. Newkirk wrote the first version of SYSTOC using the micro-computer (now called the personal computer) as the basis for tracking and recording work injuries and outcomes.

By 1982, SYSTOC had entered clinical trials and by 1983 was placed in pilot sites with business and labor leaders. The overwhelming success of the system resulted in ten installations of SYSTOC in Maine hospitals by 1985 and the formal incorporation of Occupational Health Research, which would provide SYSTOC network members with technical support, development, and training.

[top]

In addition to working on the development of SYSTOC, Dr. Newkirk was also working with Redington-Fairview General Hospital to establish an occupational health program for the hospital and surrounding community. Like so many programs, it started in an oversized broom closet affiliated with the Emergency Department and eventually grew into a freestanding facility dedicated to occupational health. To this day, Dr. Newkirk maintains an active clinical practice, whose operation continues to be reflected in the SYSTOC software.

In addition to SYSTOC software, OHR has provided industry leadership through many different activities during its fifteen year history. As hospital-based programs began to grow in the mid-80s, so did their need for information and assistance in operations and program development. OHR held the first of many regional and national conferences specifically for occupational providers in 1986. In 1988 and 1992 OHR, in conjunction with the American Hospital Association, published two textbooks on the administration and operation of occupational health programs. Both books were extremely successful, and have long been recognized as definitive texts for program managers. Besides conferences, education, and publishing, OHR maintains a web site (www.systoc.com) that contains useful occupational health information and provides links to many other industry resources and vendors.

OHR’s industry leadership and innovation led several SYSTOC sites in Ohio to approach OHR in 1996 about assisting them in the development of the first provider-based Managed Care Organization, the Ohio Employee Health Partnership. This request was in response to the Health Partnership Plan, Ohio’s managed care mandate for workers’ compensation. Recently, OHR’s partnership with Clinical Reference Laboratory (CRL) resulted in the creation of the SYSTOC^® Healthcare Network, which provides low-cost drug testing services to SYSTOC users. OHR and SYSTOC continue to respond to the changing needs of today’s occupational practice.

OHR and Technological Advancements

As the industry and its needs have changed, SYSTOC has also kept pace through ongoing product development and technological innovation, as well as superior technical support. These factors have kept SYSTOC the number one software utilized by occupational health clinics since its inception. webSYSTOC and the soon-to-be-released version 7.1 of SYSTOC promise to keep the latest in technology available to SYSTOC users, allowing them access to a powerful competitive weapon and the ability to work in a virtually paperless environment.

Today, OHR has grown to almost 60 employees, with over 500 clinics using SYSTOC in 46 states. We’ve come a long way from that original broom closet, as has the rest of the industry. As computer technology and the Internet continue to present new and innovative ways to accomplish work and provide services, OHR is excited at the challenges and opportunities they present for the delivery of occupational medicine. 

[top]