Objective

Immediately entering into the Health & Safety system a report of a workplace mishap or accident (an incident ) is often best done by someone who witnessed the incident, is the first to arrive at the scene, or was actually involved in the incident themselves. These types of users have first-hand knowledge and experience with the incident and are often best able to make an accurate report. These users need to record the basic information about the occurrence while it is fresh in their mind and details are clear.

The many follow-up responses, short-term and long-term corrective actions, detailed tracking of injuries, and so forth can then later be managed by a safety officer who is well-versed in the regulations, reporting needs, and safety procedures of the site.

Solution

The Archibus Health & Safety system handles the need for occasional users of the Health & Safety system to report accidents by providing a simplified accident-reporting form. The Report Incident form can be easily understood by company employees who are not versed in the site's facility management and safety procedures.

This form is available from the Report Incident task , which system administrators can make available to all company employees so that any employee witnessing, responding to, or involved in a workplace accident can report basic information about the incident. Employees can enter a description of the event and choose from validating lists to record location, involved parties, injuries, and so forth. They can leave empty fields that they do not know how to complete. Optionally, they can indicate on a floor plan drawing the exact location of the incident.

Once the incident is reported, safety officers need to be alerted so that they can arrive at the scene, assess the situation, ensure that proper procedures are followed, and manage the incident and its resolution. If your site enables the Health & Safety notification features , the system will automatically send an email notification to the safety officer when an occasional user reports a workplace incident. After the safety officer arrives at the scene and stabilizes the situation, they can then enter further details about the incident and update the incident as various follow-up events occur.

Note: As another option, sites can purchase the Archibus Incidents Reporting mobile app so that employees can report incidents directly from their smart phones. When employees sync their devices, the system uploads the incident report to the database server.

Procedure

The following prerequisites must be in place:

• A system administrator makes available to all employees a self-service task for reporting incidents. With this task, any company employee -- not just users of the facility management system -- can report incidents as soon as they occur.
• A safety manager first enters into the system the values for categorizing incidents and injuries. With this information developed, the employee will be able to choose from these values when completing the accident report information. For information, see Defining Incident-Related Background Data.
• The system administrator establishes a notification system so that once an employee enters the incident, the system alerts the safety officers so that they can respond to the accident and monitor the situation as it is resolved. For information, see Establishing Notification for Safety Officers .
  
  

1. Run the Incident Reporting/Report Incident task.
2. Complete the form with as much information as you can about the workplace accident.
3. Save the form.
4. The system automatically sends an email message to the appropriate safety officer, who can then respond to the accident, record further details about the accident, and manage its resolution.