Tag Archives: incidents

Measuring Safety Part 2 – Serious Injury Fatality – Rethinking Measurement and Prevention

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In Measuring Safety Part 1, we reviewed the drawbacks of focusing solely on the measurement of safety outcomes absent understanding and tracking operational processes and events that are predictive of a safe workplace. In Part 2 of the series, we are going to dive deeper into the implications of this thinking by reviewing “Serious Injury Fatality” (SIF).

Serious Injury Fatality (SIF) – Breaking it down

The concept is not new. Workplace fatalities have been the object of preventive corporate policies and regulatory scrutiny for decades. Before my interview with Todd Conklin during Pre-accident podcast, however, I had only seen the abbreviation of “SIF” online.

Being an avid reader and learner, I began my Google search on the SIF-phenomenon which revealed many sources on the topic: White papers, several documents by Fred Manuele, and a YouTube video for learning on the subject. Though my search was not an … Read more...

Remembering the 2013 Texas Fertilizer Explosion and Bangladesh Factory Collapse, Construction Safety Day, Earth Day and more on EHS This Week!

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On this week’s edition of EHS This Week we’ve got the week’s top stories in environment, health and safety news:

  • NTSB to hold general aviation safety seminar
  • CSB says 2013 fertilizer plant explosion was preventable
  • Steps toward safety reform in Bangladesh’s garment industry
  • Construction Safety Day and “Fatal Four” statistics
  • Earth Day 2014 and the Green Cities campaign

Remember to write us with your suggestions, questions and comments. Also, if you are an industry expert and ever want to take part in the program, we’d love to have you.

Until next week, enjoy the program!

EHS This Week Resources
For more information on the stories and resources mentioned in this week’s podcast, check out the links below.

  • Aviation Safety Seminar. Find out more here.
  • Safety and Security Guidelines for Fertilizer Grade Ammonium Nitrate. View them here.
  • The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. Learn more here
… Read more...

Workers Compensation – The Small Picture: Attitude, behaviour and culture more dangerous than unsafe conditions

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This is the third in a three-part blog series on the relationship between workplace culture and the costs associated with occupational injury and illness.

We’ve talked about the relationship between the employer-employee…well, relationship and we’ve talked about impacts on claims, costs and workers compensation. In the story I shared last week, we learned how some of the more ineffable qualities of workplace culture have a significant relationship with employee engagement and therefore absenteeism and direct/indirect costs. 

This is a relationship that information from Health and Safety authorities tends to support. For example, Health & Safety Ontario’s excellent resource, Journey to Excellence: The Complete Guide, emphasizes the impact of organizational culture on health and safety.

The guide notes that hard stats that clearly relate injury rates to organizational culture can be difficult to establish. In large part this is because most companies only report superficial causes (for example, lack of … Read more...

The culture of denial, workplace injuries and lessons learned

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Try to imagine this workplace injury scenario: A construction worker is seriously hurt on the job. It’s a very minor injury. Years later, under similar circumstances, a worker is killed from a similar incident. Why didn’t the company learn from the first incident?

Recent research in the International Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics suggests three barriers to learning from previous workplace injuries and how companies can overcome them. In Workplace accidents as a source of knowledge: opportunities and obstacles, author Hernani Neto of the Univeresity of Porto, Portugal, suggests workplace injuries and other safety incidents must be understood as a source of knowledge.

However, here is another point that companies need to understand: Safety incidents don’t automatically become an effective source of knowledge. Companies have to work at it. Just because a company suffered a close call or an incident with an employee suffering only minor injuries doesn’t mean … Read more...

Workplace deaths up in one outlying state, OSHA launches new wind safety team, and lots more on EHS This Week

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On this week’s edition of EHS This Week we’ve got the week’s top stories in environment, health and safety news:

  • Though U.S. workplace fatalities down, one state belies that trend. Find out which.
  • OSHA is fired-up about safety in the wind energy industry. Learn what they’ve done.
  • A new report builds the economic case for offshore wind power.

Remember to write us with your suggestions, questions and comments at paul@ehsthisweek.com. Also, if you are an industry expert and ever want to take part in the program, we’d love to have you. 

Until next week, enjoy the program! 

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Are you leading…or lagging? Revolutionizing safety performance in Oil and Gas

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Editor’s note: This webinar is now available On Demand. Watch it anytime.

So, you’re tracking safety performance. Great. What metrics are you tracking? Are you measuring the right elements of your safety program? What are your metrics telling you? In short: are you leading, or lagging?

If you can’t answer these questions, join us for Leading and Lagging Indicators: Revolutionizing Safety Performance in Oil & Gas. Geared towards leaders in the oil and gas sector but applicable to any business that has to deal with recording, managing and tracking workplace incidents, accidents, near-misses, environmental impacts and more on a regular basis, this free 30-minute webinar explores how reimagining your approach to environment, health and safety (EHS) metrics can revolutionize organizational performance, minimize costs and curtail risk. It is slated to begin at 3 p.m. EST on Wednesday, August 15.

In the presentation, Intelex oil and gas solution specialists Stephen … Read more...

OSHA citations, Mexico’s landmark climate legislation, Texas’ fight against CSPAR rules, and more on EHS This Week

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We look at the use of use of medically important antibiotics in food-producing animal, OSHA citations, as usual, and Mexico’s aggressive carbon agenda on EHS This Week, the only weekly podcast of its kind in the EHS Market. Take a listen. These are the top stories in environment, health and safety news.

Let us know what you want to hear about next week. Write us at paul@ehsthisweek.com or kristy@ehsthisweek.com. 

 

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Intelex and Virgin Atlantic featured in IT World Canada

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Intelex is pleased to announce it is currently featured in IT World Canada alongside Virgin Atlantic, which uses Intelex’s web-based solutions for safety management.

The article follows Intelex’s 2011 User Conference at Toronto’s Fairmont Royal last week where Jonathan Jasper of Virgin Atlantic delivered Intelex’s keynote address. IT World Canada author Dave Webb, who attended Jonathan’s talk, noted at the event that it is rare for the client to deliver the keynote address at a vendor’s user conference.

The article highlights how Virgin uses Intelex tools to manage safety incidents, including slips and falls, turbulence, disruptive passengers, even passenger headaches, all of which have to be documented thoroughly by an airline. As the article notes:

The airline runs only a few standard Intelex modules, prefering to develop its own customized iForms. “It becomes addictive. It becomes a bit of a hobby,” Jasper said. The airline has developed about 30 such modules. Now, “anyone with a shared spreadsheet” wants an … Read more...

Mission Well Services commits to proactive safety management with Intelex

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In a world of reactive management, where many companies let accidents occur instead of taking proactive measures to ensure they don’t occur, Mission Well Services is setting a new standard.

Though it has been in business for just under a year, Mission Well Services, a hydraulic fracturing company based in South Texas and serving the oil and gas industry, has already turned to Intelex Technologies to implement a comprehensive, streamlined safety management system.

Get the full story in our Press Room.

 … Read more...