Tim Stout was setting cooling lines at his job in industrial glass production when the unthinkable happened. He was injured in a life-changing accident that crushed his left side—8 broken ribs and a collapsed lung. But Tim says he doesn’t think about the accident anymore. He’s focused on recovery.
Throughout the long journey to improve his quality of life and to overcome dependency on opioid medications, Tim remained hopeful that someday, something would “give him his life back.” Learn how Paradigm’s team worked with Tim and his care providers to reach his goal.
Before the accident, Tim would walk his dog around his hometown of Jeannette, PA for two hours each night. After the accident, he says he could barely make it to the end of the block. “My legs just felt like they were gonna collapse.”
The pain itself wasn’t unexpected, but Tim came to realize that managing it was more of a challenge than he could have possibly known. He was taking two different types of OxyContin, self-medicating at home, and depressed. His primary care physician, Jill Constantine, MD, recalls that Tim was “motivated to try anything to alleviate the pain, besides narcotics.” They started with physical therapy, but even with a positive attitude and a willingness to do what was necessary, Tim struggled.
That’s when Paradigm stepped in to work with Tim’s local treatment team as the “single thread” through his recovery plan. Victor Chin, MD, the Paradigm Medical Director on Tim’s case, describes it this way: “The Paradigm approach is a team system — to serve as a collaborator and as an ally to help the local treatment team bring all the benefits to the patient.”
Dr. Constantine recalls that after Paradigm joined the care team, she noticed that Tim would “defer to his case manager and that she would defer to him in ways I hadn’t seen.” Paradigm Network Manager Linda Kenavey, Tim’s case manager, was in favor of non-medicinal treatments and helped him meet his goal of getting treatment focused on recovery, not prescriptions.
Following Paradigm’s Systematic Care Management (SM) approach, Linda met with Tim’s family and communicated clearly with them and with his care providers, making sure everyone had the same information and was operating on the same plan of care. Tim says, “If Linda said it needed to be done, then I didn’t have to worry about it. She got it done.”
Linda focused on working with Tim to find ways to manage his pain. Ultimately, this meant inpatient treatment at Rosomoff Comprehensive Rehabilitation Center in Miami, FL, where, after two weeks of treatment, Tim was off opioids and managing his own rehabilitation. His motivation was high. Dr. Constantine says she barely recognized him, “He was going to the gym daily, his pain was down to 20%, where [before] he wasn’t able to accomplish standing up and holding his balance.”
The Paradigm team changed the passive approach to Tim’s recovery into a more active one, drastically improving his outcome. Today, he’s back to walking his dog and living independently.
To learn more about how Paradigm can help improve the lives of injured workers, call (800) 676-6777 or email: catastrophic@paradigmcorp.com.
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