Tracking Safety Trends

Transcription

1 Tracking Safety Trends Presented by: Mary Logan So, director of safety and employee development George J. Igel & Co., Inc Alum Creek Drive Columbus, OH Ph: 614/ Fax: 614/

2 Outline Before you Start What s Your Motivation? Use Your Resources Setting It Up: What do You Want to Track? Jobsite Hazards Claims Management Incidents Examples Avoiding Pitfalls

3 Before You Start Safety people love data But is it the right data? Interpreting the data How are you going to use it? If you choose to track and trend, you have to be willing to change. If you don t intend to change, it s better not to go looking.

4 What s Your Motivation? Prevent injuries Determine actual incident cost Reduce costs Mitigate hazards Drive improved performance

5 Use Your Resources BWC s Division of Safety and Hygiene Workers Comp Third-Party Administrator Insurance carrier Your medical management folks Your company s OSHA log If you want to invest in software, you can, and there are tons of options out there. Igel uses a broad-based software called Entropy, but we started out with Excel.

6 Setting it Up: What do You Want to Track? Hazard frequency Claims management Incidents

7 Jobsite Hazards Self audits use the data you already have: Project manager/superintendent audits Safety director/safety committee audits Third-party safety vendor audits Ohio BWC, Division of Safety and Hygiene audits Construction manager/general contractor audits Now that you have them, what do you do with them?

8 Jobsite Hazards What repeat hazards are you finding company-wide? Are certain hazards prevalent on types of jobs? Does your audit address task hazards? How do the audits of others compare to yours? Sometimes the trend is what you re not seeing. Do your crews/auditors know what to look for? Are audits catching hazards that relate to your injuries? If not, revise your checklists. Are audits just finding the easy stuff? Are you closing out the hazards, or do they appear over and over?

9 Claims Management Have your TPA or BWC rep. pull your claims history Separate claims by medical only or indemnity Quantify the frequency and severity Determine the average claim cost Assess the types of injuries experienced by the company Ask yourself if you ve made steps to prevent repeat injuries If you don t have claims, take a look at your OSHA log.

10 Claims Management Interpreting the Data Eye injuries. Do you require safety glasses? Were they being worn at the time? Did you need goggles or a face shield? Hand injuries. Were gloves being worn at the time? Were they the appropriate gloves for the task? How do they fit? Have you trained employees on proper selection? Soft-tissue injuries. Time to stretch and flex? Are you doing stretch and flex? Does it match your incidents?

11 Claims Management My Conclusions If you can, track back through the incident reports/investigations. Draw conclusions. Here are mine: If you learn about a claim through a mailing, the cost is higher. If care is provided in a timely manner, the costs are ultimately lower. Diagnostic tests have costs. So does the delay in providing the tests that determine the care provided. If you remain in contact with injured workers, recovery time speeds. If you don t communicate with employees, they do not assist in the recovery process. They don t communicate back with you then and your lose days and weeks of potential restricted duty instead of losttime.

12 Claims Management My Conclusions Medical-only claims make up the majority of workers compensation claims, totaling 77.9% of claim counts but account for only 6.0% of loss dollars. NCCI Holdings, Inc., 2005 study by John Robertson and Derek Schaff Medical only claims are cheaper and easier to manage than losttime claims. The longer an employee stays out on temporary total disability (TT), the less likely they are to ever return. If you don t actively participate with the medical professionals, don t be surprised when they extend lost-time for days and even weeks.

13 Incidents First, establish what an incident is. Incident: an event outside of normal operations that affects safety and risk for the company. Igel incidents include: Auto Employee Injury Property Damage Equipment Environmental Security Next, you need buy-in, and a lot of it. Other Near Miss Theft/Vandalism Technology/IT

14 Incidents We can t fear the numbers. We have to be prepared for them to get worse before they get better, and we do this by realizing that the numbers were a lie. Employees underreported. We didn t know everything that was going on in the field. Employees pushed off injuries on personal insurance or did nothing about it. We said it was the cost of doing business.

15 Incidents Once We Have the Data Total number of incidents Number and type of incidents Timeliness for reporting By trade Areas of business By project Days of week Times of day Similar hazards Repeat involved person

16 Examples The paperwork and what happens when no one is looking.

17 Examples Reading physical therapy notes.

18 Examples Involvement in claims management

19 Examples Hand Injuries.

20 Examples Hand Injuries. 10 of 11 injuries occurred while an employee was wearing gloves 8 of 11 injuries occurred on a job requiring gloves (73%)* All 8 of the injuries on a job requiring gloves had gloves on at the time of injury 8 of the 8 hand injuries on a job requiring gloves (and 1 of the 3 not-requiring gloves) occurred to people who had been at Igel less than one year. So, 9 of 11 hand injuries occurred to employees with less than a year of experience at Igel, not in the industry.

21 Examples The right physical therapy for the right person.

22 Avoiding the Pitfalls Don t get discouraged. The numbers will get worse, but remember the numbers were a lie. Involve others. Explain how they can help in the process. Tracking and trending takes time and money. It will eventually save money. Never give up. Tracking and trending is a cyclical event. There is no end.

23 Questions?