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(Welding Safety Management) ACCIDENT RECORDING WHY BOTHER WITH ACCIDENT RECORDING AND ANALYSIS? Accident recording is undertaken to provide a broad picture of events by establishing a data base of the details of accidents. This database can then be analyzed for a multitude of research purposes. Two common reasons for analyzing this data base are: 1. to establish the most common types of accidents and the causal factors, which will enable safety and health personnel and managers to develop preventative strategies to combat these accidents; and 2. to compare the safety performance of the workplace with other time frames at the workplace or against other workplaces. INCIDENCE AND FREQUENCY RATES Incidence Rate: the number of undesired events for each one hundred persons' working at that location. The formula to calculate the incident rate is: Incidence Rate = number of incidents 100 number of workers Frequency Rate: the number of undesired events for each one million hours worked. The formula to calculate the frequency rate is: Frequency Rate = number of incidents 1 000 000 number of hours worked

If another work place or enterprise maintains their records per thousand workers or per 100 000 hours worked, you only have to shift a decimal place from one set of figures to obtain a direct comparison. This is one reason why you must define your terminology. INFORMATION TO BE RECORDED The minimum information recorded about an accident can be recorded without full investigation and reporting. It provides broad statistics to warn safety practitioners that something is amiss in a particular broad category that requires further investigation. The next step is to decide what level of recording and analysis is required. Collection of statistics should be cold, unemotional, detached and dealing exclusively with facts - not hearsay, suspicions, or what might have been. Defining what you are trying to collect is imperative at this stage, particularly if more than one person is responsible for coding and if you wish to have continuity from one year to the next. The definitions do not need to be lengthy. Examples of definitions may be:Semester: Lesson/Duration: Date: 4/1/2013 Page 1 of 5

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(Welding Safety Management) HAZARDOUS WORKPLACE: A work environment which contains dangerous situations that can cause injury to a person. UNSAFE WORKPLACE: A workplace which contains hazards which are not recognized, or are recognized and ignored. UNSAFE SYSTEM OF WORK: A work procedure or process where it is foreseeable that a hazard or risk can cause an injury; and UNSAFE WORK PRACTICE. An activity which deviates from a safe system of work, in that it does not take account of a hazard, or is inherently risky in the face of a recognized hazard.

SETTING UP A DATA BASE What type of system or data base is required to store the information? Modern computer systems offer a choice of data bases, such as the Microsoft products Excel, Access and FoxPro, most of which would be suitable for accident recording and analysis purposes, the final choice probably resting with the size of the enterprise, availability of an operator who understands the particular application and the estimated size of the data base. The minimum data that should be collected for an accident can be categorized into various groups. Many of these questions may appear to be discriminatory, for example, the injured persons' sex, age, height or weight, but in some situations the answers may be necessary, as they may hold a clue to a causal factor of the accident. Firstly there are personal details relating to the injured person. These details will include: injured persons' full name; their date of birth; sex; employment status (permanent, temporary, part time, casual, contractor or sub-contractor); occupation, type of injury; bodily location of injury; severity of injury (usually associated with recovery time); and the accident date. Other personal details that may be collected: the injured persons' place of birth; and whether English is their first language; and if not, how well do they understand English. The next category to record details is the place where the accident occurred. Was it a permanent work location; was the lighting adequate; were there climatic conditions that may have contributed to the accident (heat, cold, wind, rain, and glare); housekeeping; and the time of day of the accident and the normal start and finish times of the injured persons' work shift. The final set of details that are desirable to be collected will need to be provided by the person who has investigated the accident. This category is known as causal factors. Most of these will be established by the investigator whilst they are analyzing the particular accident or examining the paperwork associated with the accident or injured person. The type of causal factors data can be split up into a further three categories, Fundamental, Personal and Job related. It is in this category that it is essential to define every factor so that a person collecting the data knows exactly what to record or the value to assign to each record. Fundamental factors will include factors such as: breach of the rules, laws or instructions; hazardous workplace; unsafe workplace; unsafe system of work; unsafe work practices and was violence a contributing factor.

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(Welding Safety Management) Personal factors will relate to the qualification of the injured person to perform the duties they were undertaking; the injured persons' experience, training and supervision; improper motivation (ignored known risks); and any physical or mental problems (includes being affected by drugs or alcohol). The job related factors may include: was the injured person performing their normal duties; were there satisfactory standards for the job; was there correct equipment and was the equipment adequately designed; was the equipment defective; had it been sufficiently maintained; was it being subjected to abnormal usage; and was the normal wear and tear still within tolerance levels or was it due for replacement; were communications with the injured person adequate? COLLECTING QUALITY DATA There are many areas where the recorded details can be erroneous. Some of the more common ones are:

The initial recording stage where a person may be filling out details of their own accident. Make sure the questions being asked are unambiguous and are understood. Provide assistance to fill in the form and have the form checked immediately for correctness and completeness. Transcription of the factors recorded on the injury record to a code on an input form. This task is invariably left to a junior employee who does not completely understand accident terminology or has improper motivation due to boredom or other factors. The physical input of the data onto the data base. Transposing written records into an electronic data base via a keyboard. Once again, this function is invariably allocated to a junior employee and data input is not looked upon as being the most inspirational job to perform. The input of data on to a database should be verified by another operator. The most efficient operators will probably input at 90 - 95% accuracy, depending on the volume of input undertaken. It is unlikely an operator checking another operator's work will make the same error at the same place unless they are confronted by a transcription error or discrepancy Usually, the most accurate results will be achieved if an end user of the statistics either undertakes the input or performs the verification function.

Some of the data we collect is not necessary for analysis; however, we collect this data for various reasons. For example, the persons' name enables the data base controller to immediately establish that a particular accident has been recorded, however the name is not required in the analysis stage. Similarly a persons' date of birth is recorded, because this is the most accurate method of connecting the accident details against an age group. DATA ANALYSIS Having taken all care in establishing a database of high quality information, both in terms of accuracy and content, the information are now available for analysis. Much of this analysis can be undertaken by the computer itself, such as placing appropriate information into tables and making comparisons with like information from another period or another workplace.
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(Welding Safety Management) The first step is to suppress information that has been collected for completeness, or collected for verification, or for placing into categories, but is not required in the final output. (Names, date of birth, private address). The basic statistical collection should identify the number of accidents, the nature of the injury, the body part involved and the agency or what caused the accident. From this basic information the safety and health professional will then have a direction to start looking for common hazards. PRESENTATION OF DATA Don't use the injured person's name or personal details. Some questions of a personal nature need to be collected for establishing causal factors, but could cause extreme embarrassment if released or identified. An important facet of analysis is presentation - make it readable, make people want to look at it. Provide colorful and different types of charts, bar, pie charts etc., use trend lines to show where you are heading. Where it is necessary to use large amounts of text, try to break it up by making headings a different size, use bold characters display some text in italics or use boarders and apply color. If the analysis is to be in the form of a presentation, use colorful overhead charts, picturesque speech with gestures, vary the pitch and volume of your voice. Keep them awake and wanting to listen to what you are saying - provide handouts of important points. Broad lines on the chart have a greater impact and the trend can be easily observed. For complete accuracy the reader can refer to the recorded numerical details. USING DATA There are two major uses of accident data. Firstly the data can be used for comparison purposes. Comparison between one time frame and another for the same workplace; comparisons between similar workshops, work teams or locations within an enterprise; comparison between your enterprise and a similar enterprise; and comparisons within the State or Country for the same industry groups or for all industry totals. Secondly, the data may be used for the basis of identifying areas of concern and causal factors, which in turn provides a starting point for developing preventative strategies. Comparison of accident statistics provides a measure of your performance in the safety and health field. They will tell you how you compare with previous years, your competitors, your peers and the State as a whole. In larger enterprises, an upward movement of accidents will often be the first indication that something is going wrong, resulting from: poor employee morale; inadequate training; inappropriate machinery; inadequate maintenance; and problems with supervision. The indirect cost of accidents can mean economic disaster for an organization, consequently, close and regular monitoring is good insurance. Identification of causal factors enables the safety and health personnel to develop and implement preventative strategies, which is one of the best methods to get rid of the indirect costs of accidents. Implementation of preventative strategies requires a commitment by all personnel, coupled with adequate training and supervision. A reduction in accidents at a

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(Welding Safety Management) workplace goes hand in hand with a happy workforce, improved productivity and increased profits. IMPLEMENTATION OF PREVENTATIVE STRATEGIES Some preventative strategies are fundamental and can be implemented with minimal training, modification or disruption to existing systems. Others will require major modifications, extensive training with resultant disruption, and ultimately requiring modification to OSH management systems. When major changes are envisaged, the safety practitioner will not only need to provide OSH justification for the changes, but provide cost benefit analysis also, because ultimately the implementation of the preventative strategies will rely on the strategies not costing money, or any costs must result in ultimate savings. The bottom line with any business or enterprise is profit. Summary When setting up a database it is essential that you define what items you are collecting, if they are not unique events. The reason definitions are so important is to provide consistent data, which is necessary to maintain the statistics with a high level of confidence and to make accurate comparisons, regardless of who collects the statistics or codes them. There are numerous standard sets of definitions which should be utilized, leaving your own definitions to values reasonably peculiar to your own database. It is also highly desirable to provide for collection of the maximum amount of information about each accident and the causal factors of the event, however, the collection of information needs to be balanced against the time it takes to collect and record the information. As with any statistical collection, be cognizant that much of the data is personal and confidential and therefore should be kept in a secure environment. Any information produced for analysis and comparison purposes should be depersonalized so that individuals are not identified. Presentation of statistics tends to be a very dry, boring area, consequently every effort must be made to liven presentations up, by using different types of charts, colors, styles and any other techniques that will make your target audience want to read or listen to your presentation. A statistical database is no value unless it is utilized. Accident data is used for comparison purposes as well as for causal factor identification with resulting development of preventative strategies. Make sure the data collection is as accurate as possible and is relevant and up to date. Use your accident data as a selling point by including lost time injury statistics with tender documents and request lost time injury statistics when calling for contracts. Ensure that you include a cost benefit analysis with any preventative strategies recommended and remember to include the need to provide adequate training and supervision with any new preventative strategies to be implemented.

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