Certification in the Zero Injury Principles
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Introduction
The Zero Injury Institute is the only entity from which one can obtain “Certification in the Principles of Zero Injury.” The certification is knowledge-based and that knowledge when applied effectively can lead to reduced at risk behavior on the part of all employees. This reduced at risk behavior results in decreasing injury frequency. As injuries decrease new records of injury free hours worked add up, frequently reaching 1,000,000 hours injury free.
a Zero Injury result in employee safety.
This initial first Certification Series applies to the construction industry. There are Zero Injury certification modules for Crafts, Foremen, General Foremen, Superintendents, Managers, Project Engineers, Safety Professionals and other support staff such as Purchasing, Security and Office Staff, Company Officers and for CEO’s.
The Craft module will be first in the construction series because in the final analysis it is the craft journeyman that is the most frequently injured in the construction work process. Obviously other employees including all supervision who are the leaders of safety, and all support groups who are also susceptible to injury will be addressed in the various certification modules offered in the construction series.
Purpose for “Certification in Zero Injury”
It has been found through research supported by experience that most all injuries are preventable. The exceptions would be Acts of God. These are usually weather related: rain, snow, wind, lightening, hail, and ice to name the principal ones. In desert climates wind-blown sand can also be a source of injury. Our main preventative actions are to take shelter or other precautions that reduce weather related exposure to an acceptable risk level.
There is one observation regarding preventable injury that is found to be true:
The fact that injuries occur does not mean injuries must occur.
This being true introduces us to another notion and that is: since no one wants an injury to occur, why not acknowledge that fact and try to eliminate injury? Set your objective on Zero! It is when a group of employees have eliminated injury that such a work site can be called a “Zero Injury” workplace.
Cause of Injury
The observable root cause of injury is “At risk behavior.” There is one more cause that is not observable that is the base cause of “at risk behavior” and that is “at risk thinking.” All need to realize that “at risk thinking” can occur in the mind of any employee involved in the work on a construction site including all in supervision even extending to personnel located in the off-site offices of the employer. Further “at risk thinking” can occur to those who render service to the job site as suppliers and sub-contractors.
But notice it is not the “at risk thinking” that results in an injury but injuries typically occur when “at risk thinking” results in “at risk behavior.”
So it becomes immediately apparent to the reader of this module that the secret to working injury free is to eliminate all “at risk behavior.” To many, accomplishing this seems almost impossible. To the contrary “zero Injury” has been proven possible.
There is a record in construction where a contractor’s employees worked over 4,500,000 hours without an OSHA recordable. Two other contractors have exceeded 2,000,000 hours with zero recordables. Many more have achieved 1,000,000 hours.
To put a 1,000,000 hour record in perspective it is equivalent to 100 construction employees working five years without a recordable injury. Wow!
Measuring Injury Rates
“When and under what circumstances a workplace can be declared injury free” is a good question that needs an answer. Very small contractors of less than 10 employees are not required to keep employee injury statistics under the OSH Act. But for all other private employers OSHA requires that each employer record injuries on an OSHA 300 log with OSHA each year and in addition post the log on a prominent bulletin board for employee information. OSHA requires employers to keep a count of their injuries that result in a. lost time, b. job transfer to accommodate the injured or c. any light duty assignment. These three are often referred to as DART cases. The “DA” in DART stands for lost time or injuries with days away from work; the “R” stands for Restricted Duty cases and the “T” stands for the job transfer cases. All cases in the DART category are recordable on the OSHA 300 log. All other lesser injuries that involve the following (sometime it is difficult to properly assign injuries to the recordable ledger for various medical reasons) are also “recordable;” a broken bone, a suture, a prescription drug, certain severe burns, needle punctures to administer saline solution or pain represent, administration of oxygen to name most reasons for recordability.
Since OSHA requires such injuries to be recorded under a fixed set of guidelines these statistical injury categories naturally become very good safety performance measures which are typically accepted by all parties. Also OSHA uses these records of injury to provide guidance on future regulatory actions aimed at reducing injuries. In addition OSHA looks at these and often will conduct job site inspections in industries where the injury rates are above the national average.
The Total OSHA recordables including the three DART type injuries, and the DART case injury rates have become the construction industry safety performance standard measuring tools of choice.
When we consider the term “Zero Injury” it means all injuries of all types including first aid cases (which are not required to be recorded by OSHA) but nevertheless most employers do keep track of the first aids and conduct an investigation and file an internal report when one is reported. This gives a record of the minor injury should a first aid by reasons of infections or other complications become a recordable injury.
So, yes, the term “Zero Injury” includes the objective of a workplace being free of all injury. While there is an OSHA standard requiring provision for first aid treatment, OSHA does not require first aid cases to be recorded or a record kept.
Employers have a choice as to which injury measure they use in the initial Zero Injury Safety Leadership effort. Often employers begin with the objective of eliminating the more serious injuries such as lost time cases. Once the lost time cases have reached zero, then the more challenging objective of eliminating all DART cases is used as the Zero objective followed by the objective of eliminating all recordable injuries followed by eliminating all first aid cases. The best performance known by the Zero Injury Institute of eliminating first aid cases is 170,000 work hours which is equivalent to 100 workers going 212 work days without a first aid case.
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