Champaign - When clients come here, they find tools hanging from the wall. They punch in a time clock, and they work at stations duplicating the same tasks they would perform every day on the job.

There's nothing glamorous about the setting and there's a good reason for that:

"This is about work," says Dr. David Fletcher, founder of the new SafeWorks Illinois Return to Work Center in Champaign.

The center opened in December at 1806 N. Market St. across the road from Market Place Mall. Its purpose is to provide employers large and small with a one-step shop for the prevention and treatment of work-related injuries and illness.

Among its services are two hour "work conditioning" sessions and half-day to full-day "work hardening" session designed to get a person who was hurt on the job fit to return to work as quickly as possible.

Also offered are such services as evaluation and treatment of worker injuries, health screening, environmental exposure exams, hearing conservation, fitness for duty exams, substance abuse treatment, chronic pain management, Department of Transportation physicals, drug and alcohol testing, and psychological testing.

SafeWorks also has a mobile unit that offers some services at the workplace.

Fletcher, also director of occupational and preventive medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, has been based in Decatur but working with employees and injured workers in central Illinois since 1985.

The new Champaign center, in fact, will be much handier for one of his larger clients, Roberson Transportation Corp. of Mahomet.

Roberson, a long-haul trucking firm has been relying on Fletcher for about five years to make sure it hires drivers healthy enough to handle the job, said Andy Sievers, Roberson's vice president of safety and organizational development.

Sievers said Robersons sought out Fletcher because safety and wellness are a major focus for the company and Fletcher is a recognized expert in occupational health and wellness in he transportation industry.

For example, Sievers said Roberson's driver candidates are screened for sleep apnea and heart conditions, and identifying those factors plays a large role in accident reduction.

The company also turns to Fletcher to evaluate any of its more than 1,200 staff and contract drivers who sustain a work-related injury and to recommend when they're well enough to return to work.

"He understands the stress our drivers are under, physically and mentally," Sievers said.

Fletcher said that since he and his staff deal strictly with the prevention and treatment of workplace injuries and illnesses, they provide employers and employees with an efficient one-stop shop from diagnosis through treatment.

The Return to Work Center, housed in an 8,200 square-foot building , has a clinical area, strength conditioning and cardiovascular workout equipment., and various work simulating stations where clients can be reconditioned, performing activities they would normally do at work.

The center, which will also have such on-site specialists as a neurologist and plastic surgeon, is under the director of Mark Mammen, who formerly worked in occupation rehabilitation at Christie Clinic.

Mammen said the Return to Work Center is equipped to deal with injuries form a wide range of occupations, among them police officers, firefighters, nurses, laborers and drivers.

The work-conditioning and work-hardening area are in a warehouse setting left over from the building's former owner, the Petry, Kuhane Co., a general contracting firm. Mammen said clients punch a time clock when they arrive and stick to a schedule of activities to keep the focus on getting back to work.

"When clients come in, we try to treat this as much like work as possible," he added.

Mammen said the Return to Work Center is independent of local hospital or clinic affiliations, Its services are typically covered by workers' compensation funding.

While Fletcher's practice has been based in Decatur, he said he wanted to launch a Return to Work Center in Champaign County because its industrial base has grown while he has watched Decatur's shrink.

And with his ties to the U of I, both as an undergraduate and as a faculty member, he saw better opportunity to pursue the establishment of a much-needed occupational medicine residency here, he said.

Fletcher said he also wanted to be in Champaign-Urbana and near the U of I to pursue research in his special area of interest - health hazards in the transportation industry. With three interstates crossing the community, it has attracted several industries employing truckers, he said.

Fletcher said he hopes to appeal to employers' economic interest as well at their concern for their employees' welfare. Employers he has worked with in the past generally cut their workers' compensation costs by 20 percent to 30 percent the first year and 50 percent to 70 percent over three to four years, he said.

While Fletcher will be spending part of his time in Champaign, he is also maintaining his independent occupational health practice in Decatur, Previously, he was medical director of Midwest Occupational Health Associates in Decatur for 12 years. He later helped launch an industrial rehabilitation program called SHORE (Safety, Health, Occupational Rehabilitation for Employees), an organization in which he no longer has an ownership interest. Fletcher started operating under the SafeWorks Illinois name this past fall.