Understanding the Audit Trail

Let s take an example of two eye injuries. The first step is to review the incident report by evaluating the background information to understand why the injury occurred. In this case, the incident report listed the cause of the injury as employee failure to wear eye protection [9]. 

If only the eye injury cases had been evaluated, a significant reason for not using the goggles (representing significant risk) would not have been addressed. In other words, the 75 percent of the employees who did not wear their goggles because they had left them in their lockers would not have been addressed [9]. 

If the employees had participated in the incident investigation, additional input might have been solicited at the time of the first incident, thereby preventing the second incident. In addition, there was no discussion of the injuries or near misses during the monthly safety meeting, indicating a failure to use the safety committee to address real, practical, and soluble issues. If the safety committee had addressed the root cause, they 

After the first injury, the following sequence of events should have taken place  

Although reviewing the OSHA log is a good tool for auditing a management system, it is only one of many tools that can be used. Such an approach takes only a proactive look at the management system once a safety issue has occurred. Ideally, a company should try to be proactive in their approach [9]. 

---