34 hospitals warned about high injury rates
OSHA urges hiring consultant to improve safety
As part of its program of targeted inspections, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has advised 34 hospitals with high injury rates to beef up their safety programs.
Hospitals that have a rate of more than 14 lost workday injuries per 100 full-time workers will receive an unannounced "wall-to-wall" inspection. Hospitals with more than eight such injuries or illnesses per 100 full-time workers received letters urging them to hire safety and health consultants to assist them in making improvements.
This is the first year that hospitals have been included in OSHA’s comprehensive, targeted inspections, which focus on high-hazard industries. Hospitals were added because, as one of the nation’s largest employment categories, they are responsible for a large number of work-related injuries. OSHA did not reveal how many, if any, of the hospitals have the highest rate of injuries and will be subject to inspections.
The primary purpose of the notification was to inform employers of their high injury rates, says Rich Fairfax, CIH, OSHA’s director of compliance programs. The average injury rate for hospitals is 3.8 per 100 full-time workers, so only employers with a rate that is more than twice the average received a letter. OSHA randomly surveyed 400 to 500 hospitals, asking for their OSHA 200 injury data. Overall, OSHA surveyed 80,000 work sites and sent letters to 13,000 employers. As many as 4,200 work sites nationwide will be subject to "wall-to-wall" inspections.
"We’re looking at this [warning letter] as compliance assistance to employers, notifying them that they’ve had a high rate and encouraging them [to make corrections] without threats of inspection," says Fairfax. "If you have a high rate, there are things you can do about it."
In fact, OSHA is offering a free, on-site consultation program for smaller employers (those with 250 or fewer employees). It is run by the state, and OSHA inspectors are not involved, says Fairfax.
"This is a confidential service for the employer," he says. "Even though OSHA funds it, we do not get the report. The hospital has to commit to correct any safety and health hazards that are identified as serious."
Once a hospital or other employer becomes part of the consultation program, the employer is exempt from a targeted inspection for one year unless there is a fatality or complaint. "We essentially stay out of their hair while they’re working on the program," says Fairfax. "Our bottom line is, we want employers to identify and correct hazards."
Some employers on the list already were working on improving their health and safety program. At Provena St. Joseph Hospital in Elgin, IL, Al Jensen, CSM, director of facilities, says OSHA made a mistake by putting the hospital on the list. The number of injuries may have mistakenly been tallied together for the Provena system’s eight hospitals but attributed to Provena St. Joseph, he says.
Nonetheless, Jensen had been working with a consultant from the company that administers the hospital’s workers’ compensation program.
The safety committee first looked at aggregate numbers showing where injuries are occurring. Then the consultant, Karen Gbur, CHSP, with CCMSI in Oakbrook, IL, helped draft an action plan.
"We set up benchmarks from facility to facility [within the system]," says Jensen. For example, the safety committee may analyze tasks in housekeeping and food handling to reduce back injuries, he says.
What’s causing your workers’ comp claims?
Sometimes, an analysis may show an unexpected pattern of injuries that contribute to a significant number of workers’ compensation claims. "At one particular facility, we had identified that slips, trips, and falls were a major contributor to their workers’ compensation cost," recalls Gbur. "We realized we need to create a policy and make sure all employees are aware of that policy to protect themselves in the work environment."
Wearing proper footwear, marking hazardous areas, and immediately wiping up spills can reduce falls, says Gbur. But employees sometimes need reminding about the importance of those tasks.
"It’s something very simple — but so simple that I think it was overlooked," says Gbur.
When OSHA sent out its letters to employers that had higher-than-average injury rates, it detailed the most frequent types of injuries. Some employers were grateful for that information, says Fairfax.
"We’ve gotten hundreds of responses from employers, many of them thanking [Assistant Secretary Charles] Jeffress [who signed the letter]," he says. "They’ve been doing things on their own, hiring consultants [to make improvements]. Many of them had no idea they even had a high rate."
(Editor’s note: For a state-by-state list of consultation program contacts, see OSHA’s Web site at www. osha.gov/oshdir/consult.html.)
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