Category: Safety

After conducting a thorough accident investigation, you will come up with corrective actions. These corrective actions need to be implemented for change management.

Corrective and preventative actions are generated from varying sources including safety meetings, inspections, accident investigations, unsafe act and unsafe condition reporting and from audits, and are simply measures that need to be undertaken to ensure that a particular requirement is implemented.

These actions can be either corrective actions or preventative actions;

• a corrective action means a situation has been re-instated to its original state, so replacing a machine guard that was improperly removed that caused an injury is a corrective action;
• a preventative action will put into place arrangements which will prevent a re-occurrence, to stop the machine guard from being removed improperly in the first place.

An action that many think of as “common sense” and “simple” continues to appear on 3rd party audit reports and OSHA/EPA citations year after year.  So why is something which is “common sense” and “simple” so difficult to comply with?  Often times we make something simple too difficult for our own good.  Lets examine the PSM/RMP requirements for tracking “recommendations” from process safety activities:

1910.119(e)(5) The employer shall establish a system to promptly address the team’s findings and recommendations; assure that the recommendations are resolved in a timely manner and that the resolution is documented; document what actions are to be taken; complete actions as soon as possible; develop a written schedule of when these actions are to be completed;  communicate the actions to operating, maintenance and other employees whose work assignments are in the process and who may be affected by the recommendations or actions.

1910.119(j)(5) Equipment deficiencies. The employer shall correct deficiencies in equipment that are outside acceptable limits (defined by the process safety information in paragraph (d) of this section) before further use or in a safe and timely manner when necessary means are taken to assure safe operation.

1910.119(m)(5) The employer shall establish a system to promptly address and resolve the incident report findings and recommendations. Resolutions and corrective actions shall be documented.

1910.119(o)(4) The employer shall promptly determine and document an appropriate response to each of the findings of the compliance audit, and document that deficiencies have been corrected.

Use of a tracking form is considered an accident prevention best practice

By using a tracking form, all corrective or preventative actions, can be tracked for compliance, or more importantly for quality of action taken.

With all of this in mind, look at the corrective action tracking form below, and see how it can aid your organization and corrective safety measures:

OSHA has specific reporting requirements for serious injuries that occur within a facility.

The OSHA notification requirements are as follows:

• Hospitalization: This is for a work related hospitalization, and must be reported within 24 hours;
• Amputation: This is for a work related amputation, and must be reported within 24 hours;
• Loss of Eye: This is for a work related loss of eye, and must be reported within 24 hours;
• Fatality: This includes all fatalities that occur within the workplace, and must be reported within 8 hours.

Note the difference of any fatality, being required to report within 8 hours AND for ANY fatality within a workplace.

For Example: if an employee suffers a heart attack, the fatality should result in a call to OSHA.

When these incidents occur, it is a turbulent time in the workplace. Having a process in place, with a basic form, such as this report helps keep the process streamlined.

This report includes all the information OSHA requires:

• Business name;
• names of employees affected;
• location and time of the incident,
• brief description of the incident;
• contact person and phone number.

– Source

How does OSHA define “Hospitalization”?

OSHA defines in-patient hospitalization as a formal admission to the in-patient service of a hospital or clinic for care or treatment. Treatment in an Emergency Room only is not reportable.

How does OSHA define “amputation”?

An amputation is the traumatic loss of all or part of a limb or other external body part. This would include fingertip amputations with or without bone loss; medical amputations resulting from irreparable damage; and amputations of body parts that have since been reattached. If and when there is a health care professional’s diagnosis available, the employer should rely on that diagnosis.

What if the fatality, in-patient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye does not occur during or right after the work-related incident?

If a fatality occurs within 30 days of the work-related incident, or if an in-patient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye occurs within 24 hours of the work-related incident, then you must report the event to OSHA.

This form is a beneficial component of a total accident investigation program. If you feel your organization needs more components of an incident investigation program, find them here.

Download and view the Amputation, Hospitalization & Fatality report form below:

A proper investigation after an accident is best summarized with a post accident investigation report.

This form is a summary of your entire investigation, and should be completed with assistance from all statements, evidence, witnesses, and the injured party.

Accident investigations are intended to determine the cause of an incident, to identify unsafe conditions or acts and to recommend corrective actions so that similar incidents don’t occur in the future. In conducting an accident investigation, the team must look beyond the immediate causes of an incident. It is far too easy, and often misleading, to conclude that carelessness or failure to follow a procedure alone was the cause of an incident. The purpose is prevention, not blame. To do so fails to discover the underlying or root causes of the incident, and therefore fails to identify the systemic changes and measures needed to prevent future incidents. When a shortcoming is identified, it is important to ask why it existed and why it was not previously addressed. After an investigation, employers should without any undue delay take corrective actions to mitigate all of the identified hazards.

For example:

• If a procedure or safety rule was not followed, why was the procedure or rule not followed? This might be an opportunity to review the workplace job hazard analysis, and determine if the rule is appropriate.
• Did production pressures play a role, and, if so, why were production pressures permitted to jeopardize safety?
• Was the procedure out-of-date or safety training inadequate? If so, why had the problem not been previously identified, or, if it had been identified, why had it not been addressed?

Following these steps can make for an effective accident investigation process, allowing for better identification of all contributing factors:

• Report the accident to the designated person
• Provide first aid and medical care to injured person(s) and prevent further injuries or damage
• Investigate the accident
• Identify the causes
• Report the findings
• Develop a plan for corrective action
• Implement the plan
• Evaluate the effectiveness of the corrective action
• Make changes for continuous improvement

View & Download the Accident Investigation Report below:

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), these are injuries to the skeleton, muscles, cartilage, tendons, ligaments and joints that support and bind tissues and organs together so the body can move and sustain itself.

MSDs are the most common injury at work. They cost the economy dearly in lost productivity and high workers compensation costs. This is despite known and accessible methods to prevent or minimize risk of injury.

The sources of risk are well known. They are poorly planned work processes, unsafe workplace layout and tasks done unsafely.

The most common Musculoskeletal disorders are:

• Neck:
  • Tension Neck Syndrome,
  • Cervical Spine Syndrome;
• Shoulder:
  • Shoulder Tendonitis,
  • Shoulder Bursitis,
  • Thoracic Outlet Syndrome;
• Elbow:
  • Epicondylitis,
  • Olecranon Bursitis,
  • Radial Tunnel Syndrome,
  • Cubital Tunnel Syndrome;
• Wrist/Hand:
  • De Quervain Disease,
  • Tenosynovitis Wrist / Hand,
  • Synovial Cyst,
  • Trigger Finger,
  • Carpal Tunnel Syndrome,
  • Guyon’s Canal Syndrome,
  • Hand-Arm Syndrome,
  • Hypothenar Hammer Syndrome.

The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health & Safety has a very in-depth article concerning MSDs here.

There is nothing inherently wrong with relying on lifting, pulling or pushing to do work. Many tasks still cannot be done any other way even with advances in some industries to automate much heavy and repetitive manual work.

When conducting an incident investigation after an incident from a lifting, pushing, pulling incident, you need to consider all contributing factors.

This form is a list of factors to consider in the course of an investigation. As with any root cause investigation, it can be a mix of contributing factors vs just a single factor.

Some of the factors here are not simple corrections, where as other factors are easily corrected with training, awareness, or procedural change.

Don’t be afraid of change management simply because it appears daunting.

Do you have all of the required accident investigation forms you would need to improve workplace safety? You can find more components of a quality program here.

View & Download the Contributing Factor Worksheet here: