Questionnaires in, and then what?
An engineering client sends back a stack of annual HAVS questionnaires from its fitters. Most report no symptoms. A handful report tingling or blanching. Those should move on to the next tier of your protocol, a nurse assessment, and some of those will need referral to a physician with the right qualification.
In practice the handful go into a pile, then a spreadsheet, then someone's diary. Months later a site manager asks what happened to a worker who reported symptoms, and the answer takes an afternoon to find.
Why HAVS follow-up slips
The tiered approach is a sequence. A sequence only works when something tracks where each person is in it. Most services track the questionnaires, and track the appointments, but not the journey between them.
- Questionnaires are paper or PDF and screened by hand.
- The tier a worker is at is not recorded as a field, only implied by notes.
- Physician referrals go to a different clinician, sometimes an external one, with no return loop.
- Recommendations to the employer, such as restrictions on tool use, are sent as a letter and not followed up.
- Review dates set by the clinician live in the report text.
The risk in the gaps
Seasonal pressure makes it worse. Many employers want questionnaires done in the same few months, so the screening pile arrives all at once, just as clinic days are busiest. The follow-ups from that pile are exactly the work most likely to be pushed back.
A worker who reports symptoms and then hears nothing is a problem for the employer and for your service. The employer is relying on your surveillance to meet their own duties, and a gap in the record undermines both. The admin cost is real too: every question from a client becomes a search.
| Step in your protocol | Record it needs | Common gap |
|---|---|---|
| Annual questionnaire | Date, answers, screening outcome | Paper stored, outcome not recorded |
| Nurse assessment | Tier reached, findings, next step | Tier only in free text |
| Physician referral | Referral date, response, outcome | No reminder when the response is overdue |
| Employer advice | What was advised, when, to whom | Letter sent, no record of acknowledgement |
| Review | Next date, reason | Date buried in the report |
How we build HAVS tracking
- An online HAVS questionnaire per employer, completed on a phone or tablet, with the questions your protocol uses.
- Screening rules written by your clinical lead sort returns into those needing no further action and those needing the next step.
- Each worker has a current tier and a 'next step' with an owner and a due date, visible on one screen.
- Physician referrals, internal or external, are tracked with an alert when the response is overdue.
- Advice to the employer is sent from the system and logged, with the recipient and date.
- Review dates set by a clinician are entered as dates, not left in the report text, and feed your recall.
- Each employer can have a HAVS summary showing numbers at each stage, without individual clinical detail, in the format you agree.
Tier definitions, screening questions and referral criteria come from your clinicians and the guidance they follow. We do not set them.
After HAVS is tracked properly
The change is mostly one of visibility. The same clinicians make the same decisions, but the list of people waiting for the next step is in front of them instead of scattered through notes and inboxes. An administrator can work that list each week, chasing overdue physician responses and booking nurse assessments, without needing to read clinical notes to find out who is where.
Your team sees every worker who is between steps, and why. Physician referrals do not disappear. When a client asks about a worker, the history is on one screen. And annual questionnaire season becomes a matter of sending links and working a queue.
Recognise any of these?
- HAVS questionnaires come back on paper.
- A worker's tier can only be found by reading their notes.
- Physician referral outcomes are chased by memory.
- Advice to employers is not followed up.
- Clients ask about individual workers and the answer takes time to find.