The Making it Work: For Employers website was created as a resource to accompany the Making it Work: Employment and Arthritis program developed by Arthritis Research Canada (ARC). Making it Work: Employment & Arthritis is an online program designed to help employees with rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis manage their arthritis at work. It includes five e-learning modules, five online group meetings (facilitated by a vocational counsellor), and opportunities for one-on-one consultations with health professionals. If you have an employee who may benefit from this program, you can find more information here.

Making it Work: For Employers was made possible by this project team:

• Dr. Dianne Mosher is the past Division Head of the Division of Rheumatology at the University of Calgary and a rheumatologist with over 30 years of experience treating patients and conducting research. She is currently the Associate Dean of Strategic Partnerships and Community Engagement at the Cummings School of Medicine, University of Calgary. She is past president of the Canadian Rheumatology Association and co-author of “Living Well with Arthritis.” In February 2013, she received the Governor General of Canada’s Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal for her contributions to arthritis care in Canada. 

Her areas of research include models of care for arthritis and outcome measures for patients with arthritis. She has done extensive work in patient access to care and on the development and implementation of an online platform to collect system level and clinical care. For this work, she was awarded the Department of Medicine, Alberta Health Services, Quality Improvement & Patient Safety Award in 2017. 

• Additional support provided by University of Calgary Team Member: Namneet Sandhu
• Dr. Diane Lacaille is the Associate Scientific Director and a Senior Scientist at Arthritis Research Canada; as well as a Professor, Division of Rheumatology, Associate Head of Academic Affairs, Department of Medicine, at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver. She has a rheumatology practice in Richmond, BC. She holds the Mary Pack Chair in Rheumatology Research from UBC and The Arthritis Society of Canada. She completed medical school and internal medicine training at McGill University in Montreal, and her Rheumatology training and a Master’s in Health Sciences, clinical epidemiology, at the University of British Columbia.

Her research focuses on two areas: 1) Evaluating the quality of health care services received by people with RA, developing and testing interventions to improve quality of care, and conducting pharmaco-epidemiology studies, using BC administrative health data; 2) Studying the impact of arthritis on employment and preventing work disability. She has developed the Making-it-WorkTM Program, an online program helping workers with arthritis deal with employment issues. Making-it-WorkTM is the only comprehensive online program specifically designed to prevent Work Disability (WD) in employed people with inflammatory arthritis. 

• Additional support provided by ARC team members: Pam Rogers and Alex Kwok
• Dr. Sara Mallinson, Senior Research and Evaluation consultant, and Michelle Stiphout, Research and Evaluation Consultant, with Health Systems Evaluation & Evidence (HSEE), Alberta Health Services. 
• Additional support provided by HSEE team members: Meaghan Brierley and Rima Tarraf
• Neil Neary, Manager of Stakeholder Relations, Alberta School Employee Benefit Plan (ASEBP) and former ASEBP employee, Megan Hunter, Workplace Wellness Liaison. 
• Allison Hagen, Director of Finance, Operations, and Administration with the Institute of Health Economics.
• The Patient and Community Engagement Research (PaCER) Program helped evaluate the Making it Work: For Employees program
• PaCER team members: Jean Miller, Sylvia Teare, Romita Choudhary
• Dr. Deborah Marshall is a Senior Research Scientist of Health Services Research and a Health Economist. She holds a Canada Research Chair of Health Services and Systems research and is a professor at the University of Calgary in the department of Community Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine.

Many Thanks!

• Using the co-design model, we received feedback from a number of people. We appreciate the help from everyone who provided input and feedback. In particular, Alison Stewart, vocational rehabilitation therapist; the school jurisdiction employers who participated in focus groups and providing website feedback; and AHS employees.