Injury experience

Ad-El, D., Engelhard, D., Beer, Y., Dudkevitz, I., Benedeck, P. (2001). Earthquake related scald injuries—experience from the IDF held hospital in Duzce, Turkey. Bums, 27, 401-403. 

Some individual components of the injury experience have been studied separately in animal experiments. Pain, fear, hemorrhage, and tissue damage can all stimulate epinephrine production (Wl). Inhalational anesthesia stimulates the adrenal medulla but in deep anesthesia with intravenous barbiturates adrenomedullary secretion may be greatly diminished. 

American National Standards Institute (ANSI), Specifications for Informationed Signs Complementary to ANSI Z35.1-1972, Accident Prevention Signs, Z35.4-1973, ANSI, New York, 1973. American National Standards Institute (ANSI), Method of Recording and Measuring Work Injury Experience, Z16.1-1973, ANSI, New York, 1973. 

As I relate a few of those cases, keep this in mind Safety professionals initiated the studies because of injury experience and productivity improved and costs were reduced. 

An employer has 500 employees who work 1,000,000 hours a year. Before OSHA, ANSI Z16.1 —Method of Recording and Measuring Work Injury Experience — was the prevailing recording and measuring guide, and the base for computations was 1,000,000 hours. Computations based on that unit of exposure had some, but not exceptional, reliability. 

Z16.1 —Method of Recording and Measuring Work Injury Experience. New York American Standards Association, 1973. 

Any simple measurement of performance in terms of injury frequency rates or incident rates is not seen as a reliable guide to the safety performance of an undertaking. The report finds there is no clear relation between such measurements and the work conditions, the injury potential, or the severity of injuries that have occurred. A need exists for more accurate measurements so that a better assessment can be made of efforts to control foreseeable risks. It is suggested that more meaningful information would be obtained from systematic inspection and auditing of physical safe guards, systems of work, rules and procedures, and training methods, than on data about injury experience alone. (HSE, 1976)... 

The information on injury experience is reaction and not control. Audits measure the degree of control an organization has over the risk arising from its processes. 

It replaces the American National Standard for Uniform Record Keeping for Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, ANSI Z16.4-1977, and USA Standard Method of Recordkeeping and Measuring Work Injury Experience, ANSI Z16.1-1967. This standard is a development of the old Z16.1, which had been in use since 1937, before it was replaced by the (for injury and iUness statistical research) Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) system. The standard is useful in determining what kinds of events to evaluate. It includes statistical tools, including control charts, for data analysis. 

OSHA uses injury and illness rates to assess effectiveness of occupational safety and health efforts. Insurance companies use an experience model to determine good and poor risks for underwriting workers compensation coverage. Accident and injury experience does provide a good indicator about the effectiveness of hazard control initiatives. However, accident frequency and severity rates alone do not always accurately evaluate effectiveness of an accident prevention function. For example, an organization may experience an underreporting of occupational disease cases and hazardous materials exposures (Table 1.21). 

Statistics given here on serious injury trending over the last several years derive from macro studies, or may relate to specific industries. But, it must be understood, as my studies have shown, that serious injury experience varies greatly by industry. Data on serious injuries and workers compensation claims costs have been extracted from two primary sources the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in the U.S. Department of Labor and the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI). 

Reference is made several times in this book to an organization s safety culture and how it impacts on the injury experience attained, favorable or unfavorable. Since causal factors for incidents resulting in serious injury are largely systemic and their accumulation is a reflection of the organization s safety culture, that subject must be explored. Comments made on organizational culture in the August 2003 Report of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board on the Columbia space ship disaster are pertinent here. They follow. 

The Scholz and Gray work is based on a sample of 6842 large manufacturing plants with annual data on inspections, citations, penalties and injury experience for each plant from 1979 to 1985. Plants in the sample were inspected by OSHA on average 2.7 times over the seven-year period, but 23 per cent of plants were never inspected (Gray and Scholz 1993, P- 185). Violations were found in about 50 per cent of inspections. Serious violations were found in about 30 per cent of inspections, and about 30 per cent of inspections also resulted in the imposition of penalties. 

Injury experience from workplace accidents can be foimd in mar official pirblica-tions. For a fuller pictirre, the average lost time injury frequency rate and the drrration rate for the injttries need to be cortsidered. You can usually obtain more information from yotu occupational health and safety authority. 

The most common unit of workplace injiuy performance is the Frequency Rate. Other rates in common use are the Average Time Lost Rate (Duration Rate) and the Incidence Rate. Some organizations use other rates and indicators to measure their injury experience examples being the Severity Rate and the Frequency-Severity Index. Severity Rate is based on those injuries which lead to more than a defined minimum of lost time. 

The use of rates and other indicators are important factors in safety and health work. However, caution must always be shown when using these rates as the only means of measuring risk in the workplace. Remember that these particular rates do not identify the accidents in the workplace they are only measuring Lost-Time Injury experience. 

An organization will have an insurance premium calculated annually for the coverage of its employees however, with the assistance of the organization s accountant, the premium may be divided between departments. Departmental workers compensation costs may then be offset against the allocated premium each month. This method will allow departments to recognize their costs and plan safety management in a pro-active fashion, to reduce the loss from injury experience. For example, the total workers compensation premiums for company XYZ may be 100 000 currency units (e.g. euro). 

We often hear comparisorts being made between the death or injury experience associated with workplace hazards and those associated with road traffic accidents. In almost all circrrmstances, the road traffic death and injury rates will be higher. This comparison is used to indicate that the workplace is safer than the highway by demonstrating that the risks are lower. 

Errors, accidents and hazards are reasonably predictable, however injury experience is far more difficirltto predict. It may well be that, presently, expositre outcomes are, in the main, a function of luck. There woirld be some clear examples where that is not the case. If an aircraft loses power at 30000 feet and control is lost and unable to be recovered the outcome is able to be predicted with a high degree of certainty. The same carmot be said of the tyre blow-out. 

Example 3 Form for an Operation That Has Had Serious Injury Experience... 

Most progressive organizations with low injury experience and high physical and environmental standards normally have a credible safety and health policy that includes a near miss incident system commitment. 

Padmanaban, J. 2001. Crash injury experience of elderly drivers. Paper presented at the Aging and Driving Symposium, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine,... 

Reese, S.T., V.E. Wrenn, and E.J. Reid. 1955. Injury Experience in Coal Mining, 1952 Analysis of Mine Safety Factors, Related Employment, and Production Data. Bureau of Mines Bulletin 559. Washington, DC U.S. Government Printing Office. Tables 51 and 52. 

MSHA. 1998. Injury Experience in Stone Mining, 1997 Injury Experience in Sand and Gravel Mining, 1997 Injury Experience in Nonmetallic Mining (Except Stone and Coal), 1997 Injury Experience in Metallic Mineral Mining, 1997 Injury Experience in Coal Mining, 1997. MSHA. U.S. Department of Labor. 

Reich, R.B., and J.D. McAteer. 1997a. Injury Experience in Coal Mining. 1995. MSHA IR 1242. Washington, DC GPO. 

---