The Organization for Standardization (ISO) has announced the release date for the global occupational safety and health management standard it’s been working on for five years.
ISO 45001, Occupational health and safety management systems – Requirements, will be available starting March 12, 2018.
The global death toll from work-related accidents or diseases is 600 people die each day, or more than 2.78 million a year.
The primary way to avoid hand and finger injuries is to ensure hands are kept out of the “danger zone” while a work task is performed. Evaluate each work task and ensure that it is being performed in the safest manner possible. Personal responsibilities to keep your hands out of the “danger zone” include:
Selecting the right tool for the job is as critical to preventing injury as it is to getting the job done right. Educate employees on the proper tool selection and the risks in improvising (i.e. using a screwdriver as a chisel). Stress the importance of operating tools according to the manufacturers’ instructions. Walk employees through the correct use and storage of the device to prevent accidents that could easily be avoided.
A pinch point is produced when two objects come together and there is a possibility that a person could be caught or injured when coming in contact with that area. Pinch points commonly impact fingers / hands, but can impact any area of the body. The injury resulting from a pinch point could be as minor as a blister or as severe as amputation or death.
Your hands and wrists are a complex system of bones, muscles and tendons, ligaments, blood vessels and nerves protected by layers of skin. A total of 27 hand and wrist bones are connected to the muscles by tendons. Ligaments join bones together and hold the joints in place.
When using machinery, pinch points can catch workers when they are not looking. Pulleys and belts can form in-running nips, a type of pinch point that can draw the hand in and cause severe damage. Here’s what to do:
Wear work gloves when handling rough materials and when hands are directly involved with lifting or moving objects.
The can’t miss safety conference of 2018 today announced a new event: The Leadership Summit. This year, the Leadership Summit will focus on one of today’s most elusive and critical safety issues: serious injuries and fatality (SIF) prevention.
Most recent data show a 7% increase in SIF events, even as overall injury numbers continue to decline.
It’s not science fiction: robots are invading our world in a big way. That invasion, fueled by dramatic advancements in technology that make the devices more sophisticated than ever, is resulting in their increased use in workplaces, among other spheres. With this in mind, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has established a virtual Center for Occupational Robotics Research that will specifically address the safety and health implications for worker-robot interactions.
The victims include a Bible college student in Iowa who was bicycling home from work, a 13-year-old Michigan boy riding in his older sister’s car and a Minnesota school bus driver picking up the morning newspaper in front of his home.
All were killed in recent years by distracted drivers who had been texting or looking at their GPS. Yet none of the drivers responsible for those deaths spent more than a few days behind bars.
