In the first year of a new reporting requirement, medical and surgical hospitals in select states reported 221 serious injuries to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
Since Jan. 1, 2015, employers have been required to report any severe work-related injury — defined as a hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye — within 24 hours. In addition, the requirement that employers report a workplace fatality within eight hours remains in force. A recently issued OSHA report1 on serious injuries includes data from the 24 states that report to federal OSHA, as those with comparable state OSHA programs were not included.
In the first full year of the program, hospitals ranked sixth in industries reporting severe injuries, exceeded only by these top five in descending order:
- foundation, structure, and building exterior contractors;
- building equipment contractors;
- support activities for mining;
- nonresidential building construction;
- postal service.
The 221 serious injury reports from the hospital sector resulted in 22 OSHA inspections. Of the total hospital injury reports, 205 resulted in hospitalizations and 13 were amputations, which OSHA defines as “the traumatic loss of all or part of a limb or other external body part.”
A major reason for the reporting requirement is to “better target our compliance assistance and enforcement efforts to place where workers are at greatest risk,” according to the OSHA report.
REFERENCE
- Michaels, D. OSHA. Year One of OSHA’s Severe Injury Reporting Program: An Impact Evaluation. March 17, 2016: http://1.usa.gov/1Rh178U.
In the first year of a new reporting requirement, medical and surgical hospitals in select states reported 221 serious injuries to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
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