The Travelers Companies announced yesterday that it would be adding new digital resources to improve healthcare and claims access for employee customers who have experienced a workplace injury.

Through the the web-based, mobile-friendly MyTravelers for Injured Employees tool, injured employees can use a two-way messaging feature to contact the insurance company’s claims teams. This service will also include a document sharing function, according to Travelers, which will facilitate the sharing of various materials — such as state workers’ compensation forms, work status reports, mileage trackers, and medical reports — and expedite the claims process.

Further, the company said that it would be adding telemedicine capabilities to the service. Through this, injured workers who are eligible can conduct video appointments with a physician remotely, and at low cost.

“We continually look for new ways to deliver a better workers compensation claim experience for someone who has been injured on the job,” Rich Ives, vice president of Workers Compensation Claim at Travelers, said in a statement. “Our latest capabilities not only speed up access to medical care and make it easier to communicate, but they also address our customers’ top concerns — the health of their employees and the rising costs of health care.”

While insurers continue to line up for digital employee programs focused on wellness or chronic care, similar tools or resources designed specifically for workplace injury compensation are more novel, and are often handled through providers or other vendors.

One example is home healthcare company HomeCare Connect, which announced last year an app called HomeCare Connect Tele-Connect that facilitated telemedicine visits between injured employees and healthcare specialists at no extra cost to the user. Other options more focused on injury prevention include WorkplaceAware’s mobile phone-driven incident reporting platform and the ViSafe system, a wearable that tracks workers’ muscle and joint strain.

Travelers also has a hand in virtual reality. Last month at HIMSS18, the insurance company was announced as a partner to Samsung, Cedars-Sinai, Bayer, and AppliedVR for an upcoming 16-month study that will investigate the technology's place in pain management.