At Neurofit, we are dedicated to continuous growth to better serve both clinicians and clients. By partnering with a team of advisors who are experts in occupational therapy, return-to-work planning, and health technology, we aim to evolve our services. Our goal is to create a valuable and user-friendly service for clinicians, while providing clients with a rapid and effective rehabilitation experience that helps them return to work and reclaim their lives.
In this inaugural edition of the Neurofit Advisor Series, we converse with Marie-Claude Ivens. Marie-Claude is a seasoned leader in strategic healthcare leadership and clinical services, with extensive experience in healthcare management and strategic development. She has held prominent roles such as Director of Operations at Acclaim Ability Management Inc. and Vice President of Business Development at EHN Canada. Her career reflects a commitment to enhancing clinical operations and integrating innovative solutions within healthcare systems.
In today’s conversation, we explore Marie-Claude’s vision for return-to-work planning, the role of digital health tools in rehabilitation, and technical considerations in partnerships with employers and insurers. With Marie-Claude’s expertise, we strive to provide value to all stakeholders in the return-to-work process.
For Marie-Claude Ivens, return-to-work (RTW) planning is most effective when it goes beyond timelines and checklists to reflect the lived experience of recovery. While physical readiness is often the primary focus, she emphasizes the importance of also addressing cognitive, emotional, and psychological readiness, areas that can quietly affect a person’s ability to reintegrate successfully.
In her experience, many workers return with lingering challenges in focus, memory, or emotional resilience that aren’t always captured in standard RTW protocols. These gaps don’t reflect negligence, she notes, but rather an opportunity to expand how we define recovery—one that includes the full scope of what it takes to participate meaningfully at work again.
“There’s still this belief that if someone looks okay, they must be okay”, she reflects. “But readiness is not just physical, it’s psychological, cognitive and emotional.”
By acknowledging these dimensions early in the planning process, we can better support individuals and reduce the likelihood of setbacks.
As digital health continues to evolve, Marie-Claude sees significant potential for improving access and consistency, particularly in cognitive rehabilitation. Traditional models are often tied to location, scheduling, and provider availability, which can limit a person’s ability to engage fully with their recovery over time.
Digital platforms, in contrast, offer structured yet flexible ways to help individuals rebuild essential skills like attention, memory, and decision-making on their own time, and in their own environment. These tools can serve as an extension of care, helping people stay engaged between clinical visits and build confidence through daily practice. Platforms like Neurofit allows individuals to build confidence by fulfilling real world activities that simulate a work environment.
“If someone can access cognitive rehab from home, at their own pace, they’re more likely to engage. You reduce the friction, and you increase the sense of agency.”
She views digital tools not as a replacement, but as a valuable complement to in-person care, particularly in cases where sustained support and self-directed progress are key.
Marie-Claude’s work across sectors has given her insight into the diverse perspectives and pressures that employers, insurers, and care teams navigate. While everyone shares the goal of successful reintegration, she notes that expectations aren’t always aligned, particularly around what it means for someone to be “ready” to return.
She advocates for a more collaborative approach, where stakeholders have access to the same language, tools, and visibility into recovery, not just in terms of attendance, but in terms of functional capacity and confidence at work.
“If we want sustainable outcomes, everyone has to understand that recovery is functional. It’s not just being present, it’s being able to contribute without fear, fatigue, or failure.”
Digital platforms, she notes, can play a key role in enabling this visibility and shared understanding, leading to stronger outcomes for all involved.
When Marie-Claude first encountered Neurofit, it was the platform’s focus on cognitive readiness that caught her attention. In her words, many return-to-work systems focus on timelines and clearances, but “Neurofit is one of the few tools that acknowledges the invisible work, the thinking, the confidence, the day-to-day planning that people need to get back to life, not just back to work.”
From her experience, scalable tools that support cognitive health are rare, and those built with empathy and clinical grounding are even rarer. What resonated with Marie-Claude was how Neurofit translates complex cognitive skills into everyday practice: helping users rebuild attention, decision-making, memory, and executive function in a way that’s structured but flexible.
She also appreciates how the platform helps create shared visibility for stakeholders. For employers and case managers, Neurofit provides meaningful insight into a client’s recovery trajectory, allowing for better-aligned expectations and support planning.
“We often talk about how cognitive rehab helps the individual,” she noted during the interview, “but it also helps the system. It gives everyone—from the OT to the insurer—a better way to understand progress.”
For Marie-Claude, Neurofit reflects what modern disability support should look like: accessible, person-centered, measurable, and attuned to the realities of reintegration.
At Neurofit, we’re building with people like Marie-Claude Ivens for a reason; because lasting return-to-work success starts with seeing the whole person, not just the timeline. If you’re a disability manager, occupational therapist, insurer, or employer navigating cognitive recovery in your programs, we’d love to connect.
Learn how Neurofit supports cognitive readiness in the return-to-work journey.
