No company wants to get the alert that an incident has occurred in one of their factories or during one of their waste disposal actions, but unfortunately accidents do happen. Occupational health managers can have the best action plans in place to prevent incidents, but no plan is infallible. This is why it is so important for companies involved with industry, waste disposal, and other machinery-related productions to have every safety tool at their disposal. An EHS system needs to be equipped to handle any eventuality, and be able to respond in a quick and expedient manner to deal with any unforeseen incidents occurring on the job site. One such technology that has been designed to effectively manage incidents, monitor and evaluate action plans, and provide incident trend analytics is incident management software. As an occupational health worker, you will find that this tool is one of the greatest at your disposal, and this is how you can utilize it.
Manage Incidents Quickly and Correctly
First, incident management software can be used to provide a rapid response mechanism for any incidents that occur. A worker can quickly connect to the software and log the incident, alerting the occupational health team to what has happened, and all of the details surrounding the incident such as who is involved, the timeline of events, and the response of the occupational health worker on shift. Inputting the data from the incident is one of the most important steps a worker can take as it creates an incident report immediately within the system that can be edited and amended to reflect exactly what happened, an incident that can be coded for statistical purposes, and whether or not workers complied with safety regulations.
Monitor and Evaluate Action Plans
Second, before an incident has even occurred it is important to constantly monitor and evaluate the action plans in place to deal with issues that may arise. For example, if waste disposal workers for factories have to wear certain safety gear or if safety regulations have recently changed than these plans may need to be regularly adjusted. If factory workers require further safety gear such as in the way of protective eye and head gear than this must be logged and added to the action plan for that specific industry. Regulations can also change depending on the municipality or provincial government, as these evolve the action plans must be amended so that companies remain compliant should they be audited in the future. Incident management software allows for all of these actions, but it also provides one major source of data that companies can actually use to prevent future incidents.
Access Incident Trend Analytics
Each time an incident is reported and logged into the system, data is taken from the report, such as the time the incident occurred, the area of the factory, safety gear supposed to be used, and many other pieces of information that are coded to provide a statistical analysis to create incident trends. These trends provided by incident management software, often in conjunction with EMIS software, provide management with a very clear picture of the incidents occurring and how they should be prevented. By being able to pinpoint the where and the why for incident occurrence, companies can actively work to decrease their frequency.
