This is a proposal to produce a limited but working feasibility demonstration of a computer program, to be called WORKEASE, that will help a user to identify specific work-site problems and to solve them through the use of assistive technology. For each identified problem of job requirement that exceeds worker capacity, the program will retrieve solutions that enable adaptation of the job to the individual. The worker's limitations may be due to aging in the workforce, to disability, or to hazard. Appropriate ability and demand characteristics will be defined and a demonstration database of job-adapting assistive technology will be built. The program will draw upon its database for technologies that are pertinent to the problems that have been identified. It will produce electronic and hard-copy reports. The program will be modeled on an existing program (Ease 3.0) which is proprietary to the proposing firm. The feasibility to be demonstrated is that of adapting this model to application in the workplace. Summary of Anticipated Results and Implications: The six-month project is expected to produce a computer program that will demonstrate essential features of the anticipated final product. The program will be limited in scope and content to what is necessary to demonstrate feasibility. After successful demonstration, the marketable program will be built in Phase II. The completed program will allow decision-makers (worker, employer, professional) to have an efficient and effective instrument for drawing upon the state-of-the-art in workplace adaptation. A program such as this provides decision-makers with tools for checklisting the worker and job characteristics that are directly comparable in criterion-referenced terms. Like its model, Ease 3.0, WORKEASE will be unique in being a single instrument that records both job demand and worker ability in directly comparable terms, allows them to be compared, and presents targeted potential solutions. This instrument is particularly timely in regard to the need for workplace accommodation to disability, the aging workforce with their subtle impairments, and the need for prevention of work injuries. The tight labor market, with the necessity of using workers who were formerly overlooked, is a further impetus for this proposal. The worker, the employer, and society will benefit. Purchasers of the rollout program that will follow Phase II will include employers, vocational rehabilitation counselors and work adjustment specialists, together with practitioners of workplace accommodation and of work injury prevention and management. There is a market to be developed among those who are responsible for accommodating workers with any kind of limitation, and for prevention of injury. The product is internationally applicable with the addition of specific country products. Potential customers will be motivated by increased profit from better worker-job fit and by the increasing necessity to meet worker needs and to document attention to those needs.
