January 27, 2010 – Encinitas, CA – Work Loss Data Institute (WLDI) celebrates the production of its 15^th anniversary edition of evidence-based guidelines for managing workforce health and productivity in announcing the release of the 2010 ODG product line, including the 15^th edition of the Official Disability Guidelines and the 8^th edition of ODG Treatment in Workers’ Comp.

WLDI’s mission, as stated in when the company was founded by President Phil Denniston and Publisher Patricia Whelan in 1995, is: To create, maintain and market information databases to implement standards for managing workforce productivity based on strict principals of evidence-based methodology, with ongoing focus on healthcare cost containment. With the publication of the 15^th anniversary of the ODG Product line, WLDI continues to fulfill its mission.

ODG Treatment in Workers’ Comp contains the most current evidence-based recommendations on treatment and therapy for injuries and illnesses, particularly those that are work related. Through its ODG Drug Formulary, ODG Treatment also provides a listing of the medications used in workers’ compensation cases that clearly identifies whether or not a drug is recommended as a first-line treatment based on the evidence. The Official Disability Guidelines, which is integrated into ODG Treatment, contains annually updated disability duration guideline resulting from the newest lost time data gathered from the CDC, OSHA and actual workers’ compensation carriers.

ODG has now had more than twice as many editions as any other workers' compensation medical guideline and because of the ODG updating process, ODG is currently the only guideline having all of its chapters accepted by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) for inclusion in the National Guideline Clearinghouse at www.guideline.gov.

Also unlike other guidelines currently available for workers’ comp, ODG provides links from each recommendation to references of the supporting medical evidence, so it can be consulted and quoted directly. ODG is also unique in the sense that it is both comprehensive and multidisciplinary in scope, covering conditions both acute and chronic, including virtually every therapy commonly used in workers’ comp, and representative of each of the various medical specialties active in the system. The online versions of ODG are updated quarterly, and the book sets, which total over four thousand pages, are published annually.

Offered in Web or in textbook format, ODG maintained the same subscription price for the eighth consecutive year, with multi-user discounts available. Raw data files for benchmarking or integration with internal software applications are also available. Contact WLDI for licensing fees.