Injury reports in pharmacies suggest extra caution during peak flu vaccination months

Posted on December 18, 2012 by Alison Grenkie

A recent NIOSH study examined the reported incidence of needlestick injuries at a US nationwide pharmacy chain and revealed a few valuable conclusions. From 2000 to 2011 there were 33 needlestick injuries reported by 31 different pharmacy locations. Of these 33 injuries, 24 (73%) occurred from September through January, the period during which flu vaccinations are commonly administered.

Overall incidence of needlestick injuries was low, with annual incidence of needlestick injuries at these pharmacies ranging from 0 to 3.62 per 100,000 vaccinations. Injuries were most likely to occur after needle use and before disposal (58% of reported incidents). Additionally, researchers warned that needlestick injuries are often underreported.

The researchers believe that many if not all of the needlestick injuries they reviewed were likely preventable. Their recommendations included better tracking of injuries and following needlestick prevention guidelines. Vaccination providers can hopefully learn from the observations made in this study and develop necessary safety precautions during this flu vaccination season.

At Intelex, we believe that knowing when an injury is most likely to occur is an excellent step towards preventing it. Reporting on workplace injuries is a good starting point, but the data collected should be used to encourage continuous improvement in corporate safety practices.

The study appeared in November’s issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.

OSHA increases encouragement of whistleblower claims – what employers should know

Posted on April 11, 2012 by JP Nadeau

On March 12 of this year OSHA issued a memorandum on “Employer Safety Incentive and Disincentive Policies & Practices” to address its increased focus on whistleblower enforcement.

With this growing focus on embracing the whistleblower, employers must now ensure that they provide employees an avenue for reporting workplace incidents free of any negative repercussions and recognize that OSHA considers “reporting an injury to always be a protected activity,” and will raise flags if employees are disciplined or terminated after doing so. Employers are encouraged to assess their current incident reporting procedures and ensure that OSHA will not deem them to “unduly burden the employee’s right and ability to report.”

To learn more about what can be expected from this change, check out Howard Mavity’s article, OSHA Formalizes Criticism of Employee Safety Incentive Programs, Increases Encouragement of Whistleblower Claims. Mavity is a senior partner with the Atlanta office and co-chair of the Workplace Safety and Catastophe Management Practice Group for Fisher & Phillips, LLP, one of the nation’s leading law firms in labor and employment law.

Streamlining EHS incident management in the chemical industry

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Paul Leavoy

While comprehensive EHS management is critical in almost any industry, businesses in the chemical sector face a unique array of challenges. Since dangerous chemicals have direct impacts on human health, carry the potential of compromising safety, and also — improperly handled and contained — can result in significant negative environmental impacts, proactive EHS management is just a part of douing business for chemical companies.

That’s why we’ve put together a unique product demonstration of Intelex’s ENS Incident Management solutions. Hosted by our resident chemical expert Cristian Quinteros, our new webinar, EHS Incident Management in the Chemical Industry, covers all the bases, from capturing near misses to streamlining reporting and analysis and maintaining regulatory compliance.

You can view this on-demand webinar as well a library of other webinar presentations by visiting our webinar page.

Thousands of businesses to be affected by OSHA’s proposed recordkeeping rules

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Paul Leavoy

The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) is planning changes that would affect how businesses track and report on workplace injuries.

The proposed revisions to injury and illness recordkeeping rules would require employers to report work-related fatalities and in-patient hospitalizations within eight hours of occurrence, and all work-related amputations within 24 hours. Reporting amputations is not required under the existing regulation.

Also, the rule would update the section of OSHA’s recordkeeping rule that list industries exempt from injury and illness reporting requirements. Currently, some industries aren’t required to report due to their relatively low injury and illness rates. However, these industries are currently classified under the old Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system, not the more widely used North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). The proposed rule would update the list to reflect NAICS classification, as well as more current Injury and Illness rates and, as a result, some industries formerly exempt from injury and illness reporting requirements might have to report when the rule is issued, including liquor stores, bakeries, auto parts stores, and more. In fact, OSHA estimates nearly 200,000 establishments will be affected by the changes.

However, these rules are by no means set in stone. The public has until September 20, 2011 to provide feedback. Head to regulations.gov to find the proposed rule and submit comments.

In the meantime, if you are not currently tracking and reporting on injury and illness data electronically, now is the time to start. A streamlined solution will significantly ease the burden of reporting in a timely, accurate and legally compliant manner, and make adjusting to these changes much easier.

Sustainability reporting, minus the burden of reporting

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Paul Leavoy

Thinking of reporting on your sustainability efforts through an outlet like the GRI? Good for you.

That said, you may have encountered some opposition to the premise, or criticisms highlighted by Corporate Social Responsibility guru Mallen Baker, who has pointed to an oft-cited flaw in the GRI approach, namely the fact a report is essentially a company’s own narrative of its sustainability performance.

“All the current models of reporting expect the companies to provide their own narrative — to tell the story complete,” he noted on his blog. “And yet that doesn’t work, because the end user actually doesn’t read the reports, and doesn’t trust the company to provide its own context. There are no expert interpreters of this information. All the focus on assurance is about checking data — but that isn’t the real issue. People by and large don’t think the companies will lie about the data — but they fully expect them to paint the best gloss on what the data actually means.”

Yet, somewhere between GRI and friends’ overzealous focus on reporting standards and the noble spirit of making sustainability reporting as comprehensive and transparent as financial reporting, there is a golden mean that is arguably more passive, less resource-intensive, and — quite appropriately — completely sustainable. Businesses that implement a streamlined, electronic EMS featuring configurable reporting capabilities and real-time dashboards stand to benefit from two critical advantages.

Firstly, if all sustainability metrics are monitored and inputted across all business units on an ongoing basis and rolled up across administrative levels, much of the time spent measuring, collecting and analyzing data and generating reports that comply with reporting models will be eliminated. The time and effort associated with generating comprehensive sustainability reports has been a major gripe among participant organizations and critics, and a streamlined, software-based reporting process curbs the time and manpower required.

Secondly, with real-time dashboards indicating the status of sustainability KPIs (GHG emissions, for example), an organization is able to monitor the pulse of its sustainability performance and gauge the impact of new initiatives. In essence, instead of gauging and reporting on sustainability performance on an annual basis, an organization real-time dashboards and integrated reporting capabilities provide a means of perpetual monitoring and reporting.

Successful Sustainability Strategy Series: Tip #5 — Communicate your performance

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Paul Leavoy

We’ve covered the importance of developing a proactive plan, quantifying financial gains, understanding the role of metrics, and using software to manage your sustainability program for the most effective results.

Today let’s talk about the often overlooked element of a winning sustainability program: communicating your progress.

5. Communicate Commitment/Performance to Stakeholders: While the primary function of sustainability initiatives will be the returns they deliver through conservation efforts and a number of other cost-savings effects, don’t miss the boat on the wealth of opportunities that accompany clearly communicating sustainability efforts and accomplishments to stakeholders. When developing a sustainability strategy, consider incorporating an ongoing sustainability reporting plan that conforms to existing frameworks (such as the IIRC, GRI and others).

While some critics have complained that comprehensive sustainability reporting can dominate resources and distract from essential business operations, proper planning, resource allocation and the use of software solutions (with configurable reporting capabilities) can render reporting a seamless and automatic process.

Even before sustainability benchmarks have been achieved, once a commitment to sustainable development has been solidified by way of a documented sustainability strategy, an organization can begin touting its agenda. The marketing, publicity, sales and customer relations benefits that flow from flaunting environmental, social and financial sustainability are too substantial to ignore.

In closing

We hope you’ve enjoyed our overview of the elements we believe are integral to a successful sustainability strategy. Please share your thoughts with us! We’ve barely scratched the surface of what can be a nuanced, multilayered file, but we’ve tried to provide some beginner-level guidance to the uninitiated organization that aspires to be more sustainable.

As a parting thought, do not fall into the trap many newcomers to the sustainability game find themselves in by being either overly ambitious or forgetting to frame priorities accurately. Remember that your organization is a business first and foremost: instead of framing your business priorities in terms of environmental issues, frame environmental issues in terms of your business priorities.

OSHA reopens MSD column debate for public comment

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Paul Leavoy

Here one minute, gone the next. Now it’s back again. The controversial musculoskeletal disorder (MSDs) column is once again on the table as the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) considers making it a mandatory component of OSHA 300 logs.

If the MSD column is restored, businesses would be required to record details on all work-related MSDs, injuries that tend to develop over time and affect joints, tendons, ligaments, nerves and muscles.

The MSD column used to be a mainstay of the OSHA 300 log, until it was removed in 2003 (though then-OSHA head John Henshaw maintained employers still needed to lump MSDs in with the “injury” or “all other illness” categories). The administration signaled earlier this year it would restore the column to the log, before withdrawing it and indicating it would reach out to small businesses first.

Well, that time is now. Beginning today, OSHA is reopening the public record on the matter and inviting the public – namely small employers – to provide feedback on this proposed revision to the Occupational Injury and Illness Reporting Requirements regulation. The notice has been posted in the Federal Register and the public is invited to submit comments until June 16, 2011.

“OSHA is eager to hear from the public on this, and every, proposed rule,” David Michaels, OSHA’s Assistant Secretary of Labor noted in a release. “The more feedback the agency receives from small businesses on this topic, the better informed we will be in crafting a proposed regulation that protects workers without overburdening employers.”

Opponents of the column complain that it unfairly burdens small business with intensive reporting requirements. Currently employers determine whether a case is “recordable” and meets the definition of “injury and illness” as defined by OSHA regulations. The proposed rule would define MSDs as “disorders of the muscles, nerves, tendons, ligaments, joints, cartilage or spinal discs that was not caused by a slip, trip, fall, motor vehicle accident or similar accident.”

According to OSHA, more than 1.5 million recordable MSDs occur annually among 1.5 million affected establishments, and that the costs of the new rule would total $1.7 million across all affected establishments.

Interested individuals are invited to comment on the small business teleconferences OSHA held April 11 and 12. A Summary of the comments are contained in the public docket here. Read the complete notice here.

GRI releases updated sustainability reporting guidelines

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Paul Leavoy

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) released its newest, most comprehensive set of sustainability reporting guidelines yesterday, giving organizations around the world better direction towards sharing their sustainability accomplishments.

The G3.1 guidelines are considered both an update and completion of the third generation of GRI’s guidelines. The scope of G3.1 has been expanded to provide more comprehensive guidance on reporting details related to various organizational impacts, especially areas such as human rights, local community, and gender, enabling greater transparency on these and other issues. This is the first major update of the guidelines since the release of the G3 guidelines in October 2006.

Use this document, which helps organizations to produce relevant reports more easily, to determine if the expanded terms in G3.1 are relevant to your organization. Also check out this G3/G3.1 comparison chart to review the changes to the newest set of guidelines.

Since the GRI launched over a decade ago, there has been an increasing trend among global organizations to disclose information on their significant environmental, economic and social impacts. Central to the GRI’s mandate is making social and environmental reporting as important as financial reporting.