Safety Perspectives From the Dallas Region: OSHA Injury Recording Dashboard

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Frank Davis: Hello out there. Thank you for joining John Surma and me, Frank Davis, in another installment of our OSHA Dallas Region podcast. John, good morning.

John Surma: Good morning, Frank. Hope you’re well.

Frank Davis: Our focus on OSHA’s new severe injury reporting dashboard. You did a really nice blog on it that caught my eye. Made me think that we should probably talk about this on this forum, in case somebody missed your blog.

John Surma: Well, thank you, Frank. I appreciate the shout-out. If anybody needs a copy, they can find it at ogletree.com, at the Insights section. Yeah, I thought this was kind of an interesting development. I mean, one that we certainly foreshadowed in some of our other writings, and in some of our podcasts about recordkeeping in particular. Although I’ll be honest with you, Frank, and I don’t know what your thought was, I thought with the electronic submission of injury and illness data, they would’ve led with that information, as opposed to this information. But nevertheless, here it is. All those serious event reports that were submitted, are now basically searchable on this dashboard. Interesting information there, to say the least.

Frank Davis: It really is. So, the bottom line is, OSHA is taking the electronic data that employers are submitting, and they’re making it more available for searches by the public. But before we get into the nitty-gritty, as it were, I thought maybe it’d be nice for us to take a stroll through the days before so much data was collected. So, prior to January 1st, 2015, the only times that you were required to call in a serious injury event to OSHA, was with regard to a fatality and an inpatient hospitalization of three or more. But starting on January 1st, 2015, as we’ve talked about on maybe a third of the podcasts we’ve had this year, that’s probably a gross exaggeration, but it does come up a lot. The serious event reporting has now forced employers to report not only fatalities, but inpatient hospitalizations of one or more employees, any amputation, and any eye loss. And of course, the last three that I mentioned there are the significant amendments that occurred in January of 2015, which incrementally increased the number of workplace injury reports that OSHA began receiving. And so, the natural evolution of that was what, John? With OSHA having access to all this information, what was the natural evolution?

John Surma: The natural evolution of that was a significant increase in unprogrammed inspections in response to those serious event reports. Those inspections, whereas in the past, a lot of things happened where somebody sustained a serious injury, or you had one person sent to the hospital inpatient for treatment, those flew under the radar. Even two people sent to the hospital for inpatient treatment, those pretty much flew under the radar, save and except if you caught a media report, or something like that.

But now, all of a sudden, employers are having to raise their hand and say, “Hey, look. Something happened at my workplace, and y’all need to come down and take a look or send us,” what do you call it, R2I? Or as I refer to it, RRI. It goes on the back of the employer to do the inspection, essentially, instead of OSHA. Although that’s certainly, as the employer’s attorney, that’s my preferred route that they take. But yeah, there’s been a huge uptick in the unprogrammed inspections tied to fatality or catastrophe, as a result of this change in reporting rules.

Frank Davis: Right. And so, just as a refresher for those who may have missed it, or not heard it in the past, a fatality must be reported within eight hours of the employer’s learning of the fatality. There are exceptions to that. Also, you must report inpatient hospitalizations of one or more individuals, amputations, and loss of an eye, that are work-related, of course, within 24 hours of learning of the incident. Failure to do so is, I’m seeing about $10,000 penalties if they’re reporting late. And then, failure to report altogether could be classified as a willful failure, failure to report, and I’ve seen those upwards of $40,000. So, it’s important to pay attention to your reporting deadlines. It’s also important to evaluate whether it is a work-related event that should be reported, and whether there is an exception to reporting. And I won’t get into the details of those exceptions now.

You are right about the R2I letter, or the RRI letter. That’s a rapid response investigation, that is the alternative to an on-site inspection. And that kind of gets us to what the electronic recordkeeping requirements, we’ve talked about those earlier this year. But they’re doing new things with the data that… And by there, I’m meaning OSHA. OSHA is doing new things with the data that it’s collecting. And that is really the subject of your blog. So, how about talking us through a little bit about the severe injury report dashboard, or the SIR dashboard?

John Surma: Yeah. One more little pitch or plug for an Ogletree product. We do have an OSHA dashboard. And when you get to this page, there’s components of it that remind me a little bit of what the Ogletree dashboard looks like, in as much as you can search using a number of different filters. So, you can search by employer name, you can search by the type of injury, you can search by the source of the injury, et cetera, et cetera. You can go through a bunch of different filters, and you can get, based on year, based on the nature of the injury, et cetera, there’s nine years of data here. It starts January 1st, 2015. It runs through December 31, 2023. My expectation is, as we cycle through years, sometime in early 2025, we’ll see 2024’s data put on. Or, it may be something where periodically throughout the year, they’ll post some updates.

But there’s that online reporting tool that you can use to report your serious event. And certainly, a large number of employers use that tool. I mean, that tool can directly be spun into the various fields here. And if you’re not using that tool, and you actually pick up the phone and either call your OSHA area office, or 1-800-321-OSHA to report your serious event, that information is all being taken down by the persons that you speak with. And they can easily put this stuff into a database, which is clear they have done. They’re basically classifying the different injuries, the different sources of the injury. The sources are a little bit clunky. And obviously, I mean, you can’t say an ACME model 123 drill press, and make that super searchable. So, a lot of the sources are a little bit opaque, I guess, in descriptors. But I mean, you can search any which way but loose. And surprise surprise, as part of the ongoing OSHA name and blame game, you can search by employer’s name, and you can identify-

Frank Davis: …the establishment search. See, that’s the one that really caught my eye, because whenever you’re looking to be some type of external advocate, that is one way to be able to target an employer and an employer’s data, to help influence the way employees see their employer.

John Surma: Well, whether it’s as an external advocate, or as a legal advocate, in the case of personal injury litigation, or whatever other sort of litigation, yeah, I mean, it gives a lot of insight, in terms of what’s going on at XYZ Corp’s workplaces.

Frank Davis: And that’s right. And I guess you could also use it corporation to corporation, or company to the company, for competitive information. But this just occurred to me, too, and that’s why I’m trailing off a little bit is, a lot of times, whenever you’re looking at the multi-employer citation policy, I wonder if being able to access this type of information now puts a controlling employer in the catbird seat, in terms of evidencing knowledge that they knew, or should have known, that the subcontractor they’re hiring is an employer that needed more direct supervision.

John Surma: I mean, I think that’s a very valid point. I certainly think that as part of the controlling employer’s due diligence, searching this database, searching the OSHA establishment site, and then to the extent that the third party resources like Avetta and ISNetworld, and those various others are used, I do think controlling employers have an obligation to search out those resources. Having said that, I mean, whether and how quick OSHA is going to expect that employers are looking at this SIR dashboard, remains to be seen.

Frank Davis: Right. Well, and how current they keep the SIR dashboard. Because you always look at the top 10 citations, and that frequently lags more than a year behind.

John Surma: Oh, absolutely.

Frank Davis: On OSHA’s website and their data collection. So, they do have a top five category, I see, in your blog.

John Surma: There were several things about the data that I thought were kind of shocking. But this one, the top one, really didn’t surprise me all that much. Which was, of the nearly 35,000 injuries, fingers, fingernails, and fingertips, constituted over 25,000 of them. And I mean, just the other day I had a call about where the medical records indicated that the employee had some sort of amputation. But the employee and his finger were all intact. Broken, but intact. And it was one of those things where fingertip, finger, fingernail injuries are super common. I mean, if you’ve got 25,000 or 35,000 cases relating to those three body parts, that gives you an idea of how common and frequent those injuries are. But the one that I absolutely loved, because I tell folks this all the time, and people constantly have a problem understanding this, or appreciating it, one of the top 10, perennially, in terms of OSHA citations is fall protection, falls, et cetera, et cetera. Falls from a higher level to a lower level were about 6,000 of the serious injuries reported.

Same level falls due to slipping were also in the top five. And they were 3,659 of 26,510 serious injuries reported. So, that 26,510 is of the top five ways people got injured. And I thought it was interesting because, and this came up when my dad was sick, because he didn’t understand that falling can kill you. And he was like, “Well, I’m only falling to the ground.” It’s like, “Yeah, but in the workplace, 150, 160 people die annually falling to the ground.” Well, not only do that many people die annually falling to the ground at work, but nearly 3,700 people get injured seriously slipping and falling at the same level. And so, it’s one of those things where, to me, it’s just an interesting data point. And it’s one of those things where I think it shocks people that that many people fall that way, and get hurt seriously, such that that’s one of the five leading mechanisms of injuries.

Frank Davis: Yeah, I find that interesting. I also found that a couple of years ago in the Dallas region, there were more fatalities associated with flat roof falls than sloped roof falls. Do you remember that, when that data came out?

John Surma: Oh, yeah. Yep. Yep. But I mean, to some extent, I wonder, and I don’t know what your thoughts are. I’d be curious to know. I always wonder whether it’s one of those situations where because people are working on a flat roof, they think they can be a little bit more lackadaisical?

Frank Davis: Yeah, maybe. Backing up and going over the edge, or falling through a skylight, or something like that. That’s possible. But one of the stated reasons that OSHA is making this data more accessible, is to allow employers to review it, and analyze it, and find ways to further reduce their injury rates. And so, you and I see a lot of injuries during the course of a year. Heck, I injure myself a lot through the course of a year, personally.

John Surma: I was going to say, we’re not supposed to talk about our injuries.

Frank Davis: I was just thinking about the time a couple of days ago, when I caught my thumb in a rat trap. That was pretty unpleasant. Talking about finger injuries.

John Surma: Ugh.

Frank Davis: You can kind of see how getting access to where people are mostly getting their fingers and hands caught, how that could help remind employers that maybe that’s an important thing to remind employees of, to keep your hands free of moving parts. And same with the reference to falls on the same level. Same level slipping. Remember that while it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but falling on the same level can result in a fatality.

John Surma: Oh, absolutely.

Frank Davis: It does very often.

John Surma: Absolutely.

Frank Davis: Like the weight falling off of a six-foot ladder has a higher fatality rate than falling further, because of the rate that the body rotates during the fall. So, I can see how OSHA would be able to advocate that making that information available may help employers reduce injury rates.
However, in your blog, I couldn’t help but notice a little skepticism in your thoughts about OSHA’s assertion that the data would help employers reduce injury rates.

John Surma: Oh, come on me. Me be skeptical? I can’t believe that you would think that I was skeptical. Well, I mean, look, one of the things that we’ve not really talked a lot about in our podcast, is leading versus lagging indicators. And that’s probably a podcast topic we should talk about at some point in time. But from the standpoint of safety professionals as a whole, generally they’ve eschewed lagging indicators. So, old data, recordable injuries, or recorded injuries and illnesses, to show kind of what the safety situation is with a company. And I mean, very clearly, especially if you’re talking about data that is, at this point, it’s only six months, seven months. Oh, I guess I’ve got to take that back. We’re not in June, we’re in September. So, nine months old. At a certain point, a year or two years, okay, maybe that’s still data that’s useful. But when you’re talking about data that goes back to 2015, where you’re talking data that’s almost a decade old, is that data really valuable to show the condition of that employer today? Does it really give guidance to the employer about what its situation is?

For employers who are leaders of the pack, relative to safety in their particular market sector, does knowing what is happening in competitors 10 years ago, does that really have a bearing on those folks? I mean, most folks are looking at leading, not lagging indicators. I question the legitimacy of that claim from OSHA. I think that that’s a little bit of a, we’re trying to find a way to gain some cover by making this information so readily accessible, and publicly available, and not anonymizing it. But color me a skeptic. I’m bad, I guess, and we can go from there. But OSHA does seem to think that this will help employers make informed decisions about their safety programs. Whether that’s true or not remains to be seen, I guess.

Frank Davis: And then, as you point out, I mean, there’s no doubt that there’s going to be more and more data available. That’s the trend of the world. I even find myself wanting to check and see what’s out there about random questions that’s just available. To your point in the blog, this data is going to become increasingly more available. And I feel like there’s going to be more data collected, and that’s just the trend for the future. But, your final point in your blog post, and I hope everybody gets a chance to read it, is a good one. And that’s about the importance of what I would call, good data in.

John Surma: Oh, yeah. No, I mean, you and I are old enough that when computers were kind of still a thing in development, the mantra, “Garbage in, garbage out,” was heard over and over and over again. And it’s true with regard to the data that is submitted to OSHA. Ultimately, the employer has the ability to control that data, to some extent, at least. And this just relates to both the serious event reports, as well as the OSHA recordkeeping, and the content of the OSHA records, and being careful and mindful that what you put in those reports, is ultimately going to be publicly accessible.And so, from the standpoint of the descriptions of injuries, et cetera, et cetera, being very careful about how you… I mean, first of all, this is a report to a government entity. And so, as a consequence, we need to make sure that we’re very, very truthful and accurate in those responses. But we also need to be mindful of being careful about the phraseology, and the wording that we use.

Because ultimately, at the end of the day, both with respect to the serious event reports, as well as with respect to the OSHA records, we are going to have those records searched by folks. Some folks are going to be aligned with us, some folks are going to be competitors of us, and then some folks are going to be basically targeting us, if we’re the employer. And so, we want to make sure that we’re presenting the best version of the truth that we can possibly present. And so, that’s where being mindful of what’s being put into those records, and not just being sloppy and haphazard about it, is going to be crucial, ever more crucial, as this data becomes more available.

We didn’t touch on it, but I do think it is worth talking about, and that’s the data from the OSHA records that have been submitted electronically. That stuff’s hard to search for now. When it becomes easy to search, it’s going to be a headache for a lot of employers, because a lot of times, the data that’s put on those OSHA records is just not really well-documented.

Frank Davis: Yeah. No, they’ll figure it out. They’ll figure it out eventually. No doubt about it. They’ll figure out how to extract that data, and make it go into the entire database. I think that’s the point, right?

John Surma: Oh, absolutely.

Frank Davis: So they get a better read on what’s going on. And I think talking about lagging indicators, that’s certainly one reason why they’re maintaining the older records, is so they can compare them to what’s going on right now, and see if there’s been an improvement, or a worsening, in certain areas. And I get that. Forward-looking, it’s always hard to find a product or a way that’s able to look forward. I suspect that they’ve got the artificial intelligence algorithms working on that analysis as we speak, trying to be predictive about the future. Heck, and maybe it’s the insurance companies, the workers’ comp insurance companies, that are going to come up with the best models first, which wouldn’t surprise me. They probably have the most financial incentive to do so. But anyway, John, I thought this was a really good blog. I really appreciate your work on this. So, if anybody is interested in looking back at blogs, John is a prolific blogger. Also look us up, and listen to our podcast, because John and I certainly like to hear ourselves talk. John?

John Surma: Yes, we do.

Frank Davis: John, I appreciate you meeting with me again today, here in the recording studio. And until next time, I shall bid you adieu.

John Surma: Well, Frank, once again, as always, it’s a pleasure. To our audience, thank you for joining us, and stay tuned. More will be coming.

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