NSC report addresses how existing technologies can save lives and reduce serious injuries
Although workplace injuries are trending down, workplace fatalities are rising. While a fatality may seem like an impossibility at your workplace, 5,250 workers died on the job in 2018 - on average, more than 100 a week or more than 14 deaths every day. The worst part is that most of these deaths were preventable. Not only is a fatality a tragedy, but it also can have a long-lasting effect on the emotional health, productivity, and attitude of the workforce.
In its first Work to Zero research report, Safety Technology 2020: Mapping Technology Solutions for Reducing Serious Injuries and Fatalities in the Workplace, the National Safety Council (NSC) looks at 18 different non-roadway, hazardous situations in which workers are most likely to die and provides anywhere from five to eight potential technology solutions for each situation.
The top four hazardous situations and corresponding technologies identified in the report include:
- Work at height: This includes deaths resulting from falling to a lower level, falling objects, and injury from the sudden arrest of a lifeline. Contributing to these risks are worker behavioral failures, leadership failure, and scaffolding/platform failure. Top technology solutions include mobile anchor points, aerial lifts and platforms, and self-retracting lines.
- Workplace violence: This includes deaths resulting from intentional physical violence to a colleague, weapon violence, and violence due to robbery. Contributing to these risks are lack of workplace awareness, lack of training or supervision, and lack of security measures. Top technology solutions include real-time response management mobile apps, video cameras, and wearable or mobile-app based panic buttons.
- Repair and maintenance: This includes deaths resulting from machine energization, being struck by machinery, or being entangled in machinery. Contributing to these risks are lack of training or supervision, fatigue, and machinery malfunction. Top technology solutions include machinery cutoff light curtains, power management systems, and permit to work technologies.
- Construction and Installation: This includes falls to a lower level, control of energy, and electrocution. Contributing to these risks are leadership failure, lack of training, and lack of workplace awareness. Top technology solutions are VR and digital training, proximity sensors, and fall protection kits.
Other hazardous situations addressed in the report are logging equipment operation, tending a retail establishment, electrical work, emergency response, vehicle-pedestrian interactions, process safety operations, cleaning, loading and unloading, confined space entry, inspections, heavy equipment operation, excavation, machinery operation, and hot work.
Download report.