Sustainability & Risk/ Health & Safety / Objectives

Tracking Workplace Accidents Involving Employees and Visitors

Objective

No matter the work environment-- a manufacturing plant, a lab in a research facility, a hospital, a loading dock, a suburban office park, a downtown high-rise office building-- workplace mishaps and accidents are bound to occur. Workplace mishaps can range from minor accidents to potentially harmful situations involving multiple employees and building occupants. For example, the following are typical workplace occurrences:

  • a lab technician burning their skin while handling a chemical
  • a warehouse worker dropping a heavy package on their foot
  • a visitor to the site slipping on an icy walkway while entering the building
  • an employee having an automobile accident while driving a company car
  • an elevator full of employees stuck between floors
  • a hazardous substance spilling and requiring a complete building evacuation

Regardless of the severity of the accident or whether or not injuries result, the safety officer must manage the details of the accident and monitor it through to its full resolution. The safety officer must also investigate the accident and take action to prevent similar occurrences in the future.

Additionally, the safety officer must adhere to policies from regulatory agencies, employee unions, and other parties and be sure to fully report and follow through on the accident in accordance with these regulations.

Solution

To enable safety officers to manage the many details of a workplace accident ( incident ), the Health & Safety application provides the safety officer with a series of forms for recording workplace mishaps, their causes, and the follow-up responses, as well as reports that summarize workplace accidents and help safety officers spot safety-related trends.

When an accident occurs, the safety office can complete the form with preliminary information and then continually update the system as the investigation unfolds, employees recover from injuries, and corrective measures are taken. The forms are designed to record all potential people at the site who may be involved in an accident:

  • company employees
  • regular visitors to the building, such as contractors and vendors with whom you do business. These visitors are entered into the facility management system.
  • visitors who are not entered into the facility management system.

Additionally, the Health & Safety application offers a simplified, easy-to-complete form so that any employee can report an accident and provide basic details. The system alerts the safety officer to this new accident, and the safety officer can then take over the resolution and management of the issue. For information, see Occasional Users Reporting Workplace Accidents .

Safety officers can use the application's reports to spot accident trends, analyze accident rates, and submit accident documentation to governing agencies.

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

Procedures

As soon as the situation has been stabilized and employees are safe, the safety officer enters as much information as they know about the event into the system.

Safety Manager Enters and Manages an Accident Report for an Employee

Prerequisite: A safety manager first enters into the system the values for categorizing incidents, responses, injuries, corrective actions, and so forth. With this information developed, the safety manager will be able to choose from these values when completing the accident report information. For information, see Defining Incident-Related Background Data

  1. Load the Track/Track Incidents task, chooses Add New, and completes the first tab (Incident Details ) with basic information about the event, including time, affected employee, description, and category of incident. Save the record.
  2. Move to the Site Information tab and enter details about the location.
  3. Optionally, indicate the exact location of the incident on a floor plan drawing by choosing the Indicate on Drawing button from the Incident Details tab.
  4. If the affected employee required immediate medical attention, enter it on the Medical Information tab .
  5. Interview any witnesses and enter their statements into the system using the Track/Track Incident Witness task .
  6. Record your company's response to the incident.
  • As safety officers investigate the incident and determine its causes, they can record their findings using the Track Incidents/Incident Response tab .
  • The investigation may show that further training and PPE is required for the involved employee. If the employee has been injured, the safety officer must monitor the employee's medical condition until full recovery. For information on responding to the needs of individual employees involved in the accident, see Entering Employee-Specific Response to an Incident .
  1. If necessary, file accident reports with appropriate regulatory agencies.
  1. Analyze your incident data to spot safety-related trends. See Management Reports and Operational Reports

Safety Manager Enters and Manages an Accident Report for a Visitor

Contract workers and visitors may be involved in accident while at your site. The safety manager follows the same procedure as outlined above to enter and manage the resolution of the accident and ensure the well being of the visitor. However, there are a few differences.

  • When entering the incident details in Step 1 above, the safety officer completes special fields for non-employees. See Recording Non-Employees Involved in Incidents .
  • In Step 7, the safety officer does not track additional required PPE, training, and medical appointments for this person.

See Also

Visually Indicating Accident Locations

Generating OSHA and other Industry-Standard Reports

Occasional Users Reporting Workplace Accidents