First Aid Cases

If a case is only considered to be first aid, it does not have to be recorded. For recordkeeping purposes first aid means only the following treatments (any treatment not included in this list is not considered first aid for recordkeeping purposes)  

Using a nonprescription medication at nonprescription strength Administering tetanus immunizations 

Cleaning, flushing, or soaking wounds on the surface of the skin 

Using wound coverings such as bandages, Band-Aids, gauze pads, etc., or using butterfly bandages or Steri-Strips 

Using any nonrigid means of support, such as elastic bandages, wraps, nonrigid back belts, etc. 

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To determine which jobs you should analyze first, review your injury and illness reports such as the OSHA 200 log, your medical case histories, your first-aid cases, and workers compensation claims. First, you should conduct a JHA for jobs with the highest rates of disabling injuries and illnesses. Do not forget jobs in which you have had close calls or near hits. You should give these incidents a high priority. Analyses of new jobs and jobs in which changes have been made in processes and procedures should be the next priority. 

Life/health outside No effect No effect First aid cases Severe injury... 

In order to establish reliable quantification measures, a consistent set of terms and reporting standards is required. In the area of occupational safety, considerable standardization has already been achieved through the use of measmes such as the number of first-aid cases or recordable injuries. Although different organizations will apply these terms slightly differently from one another there is sufficient consensus to allow for their use across broad swathes of industry. For process safety it is much more difficult to come up with comparable yardsticks. Hence comparisons between different facilities may lack validity and credible trend lines are difficult to develop. 

These indicators include well-established parameters such as lost time accidents, first-aid cases and recordable injuries. Figure 3.3 illustrates how the indicators are tracked over time. Lagging indicators are widely used because, assuming that there are enough events to ensure statistical significance they allow management to establish baselines, measure trends, and to compare results with other facilities and companies. 

In the accident group (330 cases), a major injury is any case that is reported to insurance carriers or to the state compensation commissioner. A minor injury is a scratch, bruise, or laceration such as is commonly termed a first-aid case. A no-injury accident is an unplanned event involving the movement of a person or an object, ray, or substance (slip, fall, flying object, inhalation, etc.), having the probability of causing personal injury or property damage. The great majority of reported or major injuries are not fatalities of fractures or dismemberments they are not all lost-time cases,... 

One or more indices describing incident performance according to various units of measurement (e.g., disabling injury frequency rate, number of lost-time accidents, disabling injury severity rate, number of first-aid cases, or dollar loss). It may also refer to a summary statement describing incident performance. 

Efficient administration of workers compensation programs keeps cost down. These no fault programs relieve many of the delays in making compensation available to injured workers. Employers must tell employees about workers compensation benefits and claim procedures and must keep records of claim-causing or potentially claim-causing injuries (usually other than first aid cases). 

Not all work-related incidents are OSHA recordable. However, workers should report all cases to their employer. First aid cases are not recordable. Under the OSHA system, there are four classes of recordable cases ... 

Month Number of times the production line was run Number of first aid cases First Aid Case Rate per line run UCL LCL... 

The average number of first-aid cases per production line used (U ) is 30/74 =. 41. The upper control limit for Period 1 is. 41 + 3 s]aI/ 5 = 1.27, and the lower control limit is. 41 - 3 Al/5 = -. 44 (indicated as 0 on the chart since the obtained value is negative). This same process is followed for each period under observation. The control chart using this technique appears in Figure 4.7. 

An accident, by definition, is any unplanned event that results in personal injury or in property damage. When the personal injury requires little or no treatment, or is minor, it is often called a first aid case. If it results in a fatality or in a permanent total, permanent partial, or temporary total (lost-time) disability, it is serious. Likewise, if property damage results, the event may be minor or serious. All accidents should be investigated regardless of the extent of injury or damage. 

The injiuies m be first aid cases - minor but medically treated lost-time (did not complete at least one full shift) and lost-time and severe, (resitlting in, or likely to result in, more than ten days off work, amputations, certain fractirres or loss of sight). 

Establishing a medical surveillance program that includes handling first aid cases on-site and off-site at a nearby physician and/or emergency medical care to help reduce the risk of any incident that may occur [2]... 

Make sure that there are methods to report injuries for example, first aid cases,... 

Develop objectives to include specific areas of performance that can be measured and/or verified. For example, Improve safety performance in my department next month is too general as an objective. A better objective may be, for example, Reduce first aid cases by 10 percent next month. Even more measurable goals are those objectives where managers and/or supervisors have complete control— for example, Hold 30-minute safety meetings for all employees in my area every Monday morning at 7 00 a.m. As noted previously, objectives must be realistic and attainable and should represent a significant challenge. 

A review of the OSHA log is the most common method to determine pattern analysis. However, you must remember that these are only recordable injuries and do no reflect first aid cases, near misses, etc. These logs are not the only useful source of information. Records of hazard analysis can be analyzed for patterns— for example, inspection records and employee hazard reporting records [5]. 

Some say, How can you celebrate zero incidents The fact is that there are many elements that make up zero incidents (workplace injuries, vehicle incidents, property damage, first aid cases with medical only, etc.). We still have a long way to go to understand how to change and sustain a safety culture. ... 

All loss-causation events follow the CECAL pattern, but their progress through the loss-causation sequence is channeled either by Luck Factor 1, Luck Factor 2, or Luck Factor 3. The difference between a fatality, permanent or disabling injury, temporary disabling injury, lost-time injury, and a first aid case is largely a matter of luck. 

Incident as used here refers to any incident that has the potential to cause injury or illness. Thus it includes actual lost-workday injuries and illnesses, non-lost-workday injuries and illnesses, first-aid cases, near misses, vehicle incidents, and equipment damage incidents (such as forklift coUisions with stationary objects, pump failures, spills, etc.). Some of these incidents may not be routinely documented in many organizations. 

Not only do base rate numbers change from country to country, but definitions of the types of accidents may also vary from country to country. It is important to know what definitions are being used for such things as lost time, recordables, first aid cases, and others if you are planning to compare accident frequency rates. For example, the definition of a recordable injury and illness in the United States may be different from the definition used in Canada, Latin America, Asia, or the United Kingdom. In areas where no clearly defined definitions exist, the site must develop its own. This is usually what has to take place in cases of property damage and process interruptions. 

Until recently, the only measuring tools available were the counting of failures (lost-time injuries however defined, first-aid cases, property damage incidents and near misses ), and attempts at measuring the financial costs of losses resulting from failures to control safety, health and the environment. All of these involve studying the evidence of failures in one form or another, rather than the performance achieved. And there are difficulties in collecting the evidence, for example ... 

Negligible - hazard will not result in serious injury or illness, remote possibility of damage beyond minor first aid case. 4... 

Reactive Investigate Serious Injuries Proactive Analyze Near Hits and First Aid Cases... 

As illustrated in Figure 20.14, when people give personal testimony, the presentation is more useful than a statistical analysis. We should probably spend less time calculating summary injury statistics and more time eliminating the barriers to the personal reporting and analysis of safety-related incidents—from near hits and first-aid cases to lost-time injuries. 

What does your company do about reporting accidents Is there an investigation associated with every accident, close call, first-aid case, and minor incident What does your company do when a serious accident occurs Is what happens when a serious incident occurs much different than when a close call or first-aid case occurs ... 

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