Intervention Leading with Safety

Intervention-Leading with Safety workshops and targeted training... 

Clinicians are usually most concerned about external validity of trials of potentially dangerous treatments. Complications of medical interventions are a leading cause of death in developed countries. Risks can be overestimated in trials, particularly during the introduction of new treatments when trials are often carried out with patients with very severe disease, but stringent selection of patients, confinement to specialist centers and intensive safety monitoring usually lead to lower risks than in routine clinical practice. Trials of warfarin in non-rheumatic atrial fibrillation are a good example. Prior to 2007, all trials... 

For the safety performance to improve in the workplace, interventions must be based upon sound information that begins with the measurement process. Proper measurement and collection of safety metrics requires employees to be motivated to keep abreast as to where the safety program stands with regard to the goals that have been set. Employees in the organization should be held accountable for collecting the necessary measurements for the metrics program. Measurement activities should be established to ensure validity and reliability of the data. Inconsistencies in the measurement will lead to invalid data, improper conclusions, and incorrect corrective action. 

Although the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) banned the residential use of lead-based paint in 1978, millions of children remain at risk for exposure to lead from deteriorating paint in older homes. Lead poisoning is especially harmful to children under the age of 5 years because it interferes with growth and development and it has been shown to lower IQ. Symptoms of chronic exposure to lead include diminished appetite, nausea, malaise, and convulsions. Blood lead level fBLL), expressed as micrograms per deciliter (p.g/dL), is used to monitor the effect of chronic exposure. A BLL < 10 p.g/dL is considered normal a BLL > 45 xg/dL requires medical and environmental intervention. At high levels (>70 p.g/dL), lead can cause seizures, coma, and death. 

Working with a target and, thus, obtaining a results focus means that stakeholders who must contribute to the policy execution are allocated for each policy action. If we examine road safety strategies, this is often the case. A strategy is translated into concrete policy interventions and each intervention in itself must lead to execution for which stakeholders bear the responsibility. In this approach, tuning and cooperation take place at the level of interventions or measures. See, for example, the approach used in Ireland (RSA, 2007). 

Maintenance standards are a matter for the organisation to determine there must be a cost balance between intervention with normal operations by planned maintenance and the acceptance of losses because of breakdowns or other failures. From the health and safety aspect, however, defects requiring maintenance attention which have led or could lead to increased risk for the workforce should receive a high priority. Linking inspections with maintenance can be useful, so that work areas and equipment are checked regularly for present and possible future defects. Some plant items may be subject to statutory maintenance requirements, and the manufacturer s instructions in this respect should be complied with as well. 

As we have discussed, some activities or behaviors are not readily motivated by certain types of consequences, thus requiring extra support. Figure 11.6 can be used to identify these tasks and guide approaches for consequence intervention. Because safe behavior competes with at-risk behavior that is supported by external and natural consequences, it is usually necessary to support safe behavior with extra consequences. This leads us now to a discussion of two very popular safety topics rewards and penalties (actually referred to as "discipline" in occupational settings). 

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