No. According to this article, “Reducing Minor Injuries Does Not Translate to Reduction in Serious Injuries and Fatalities.”
This short summary blew up one of my long held risk management beliefs that building a culture of safety that strives to prevent all injuries and a system of near miss reporting that identifies near misses that either had no injury or only minor injury will help prevent major injury.
So what can you do:
1. Read the article and the White Paper.
2. Recognize that injury prevention is multifaceted and there is no one size fits all solution because there is not a single problem.
3. Report, track, and analyze all workplace injuries. During the analysis look for the root causes of injuries.
4. Learn about Crew Resource Management. I have heard several presentations recently by the author’s of [amazon-product text=”Crew Resource Management: Principles and Practices” type=”text”]0763771783[/amazon-product] (Amazon Affiliate Link).
5. Don’t accept that workplace injuries are inevitable. It is possible to achieve zero injuries on the next call, next shift, next day, next week. If you believe injury is inevitable why not pick the people to get hurt and hurt them. Easier than waiting for random chance.
6. Read and study about injury and fatalities in the EMS workplace. Safety is the hot topic at every EMS conference I attend and not in the old time lip service of “scene safe, BSI.” There is a legitimate and growing concern for safety, reducing injury occurrences, and learning from major incidents. Need an MS thesis or PhD dissertation topic? Do something safety related. EMS needs it.
What are your thoughts on the article? Do you see the growing concern for safety that I am seeing? Is there a culture shift happening in EMS? Share your thoughts in the comments.
