West Ham United's Sport Medicine and Sport Science department hope a unique new system will keep players out of the treatment room.

In partnership with the University of Ghent (UGent) and Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in Belgium, the Hammers have introduced individual risk profiles for every professional.

The profiles will cover two specific areas - injury prevention and performance progression - and allow head of sports medicine Andy Rolls and first-team physiotherapist Stijn Vandenbroucke to constantly monitor player's individual performances, risk areas and injury histories.

With the help of the two universities, each profile will be updated on a daily basis throughout the season and will be accessible via a password-safe website to enable players and staff to keep tabs on their condition from anywhere on the planet.

To kick-off the project Rolls, Vandenbroucke and the Hammers' medical staff have started screening squad members using a range of balance, flexibility and strength tests. The test results will help them to identify areas of individual strength and weakness and tailor each player's training schedule to minimise their chances of being injured.

Following next week's pre-season trip to Switzerland, the players will undergo performance progression screening at Chadwell Heath later this month, adding to the data available. Regular tests will be held throughout the season.

Vandenbroucke explained the purpose of the screening in detail on West Ham TV.

"We are testing for injury prevention because we want to create an up-to-date risk profile for every player for throughout the season," he said.

"Therefore we need to know what their weaknesses and their strong points are, so we're testing their flexibility, strength, stability, core stability and balance, jumping and a few other things.

"From there on, together with the universities, we can work out what they need to do during the pre-season and the season."

Vandenbroucke said the pre-season tests would stand the players in good stead ahead of what will be a busy and demanding season in the npower Championship.

"I think it's going to be a very tough season with a lot of games and physical demands on the players, so I think in the pre-season we have to grab the chance to make everybody as strong as possible so we can go as far as possible in the competition."

Belgian-born himself, Vandenbroucke said the roles played by his fellow countrymen at UGent and VUB would be of huge benefit.

"We have worked together with these universities because they have created an algorithm [list of instructions] which will help us on a daily basis with injury prevention and performance progression.

"After each training session, they will help us to create an injury-risk profile for the following day so we know if players have trained well, if they are fatigued or if they are at risk of suffering a certain injury.

"We're trying to use evidence-based data and use Sport Science at a high level."