OSHA Series 4 | Resolve Recordability

Over the weekend Marni has an idea! Maybe sorting her overwhelming OSHA incident sheet by the type of incident might help her speed through assessing if she needs to report them to OSHA. Birds of a feather, right?! She thinks cheerily walking into the office. Yet, when she begins to skim through the incident descriptions (even though they are sorted by type), she realizes from the surface it’s very difficult to assess the severity of some events without calling whoever reported the incident, once again requiring her to dip in and out of Hudson Valley’s HRIS system. Layering on the complexities of having to get up to speed on OSHA’s definitions of injury types Marni knows this will be a week-long endeavor. Mentally she crosses her fingers that nothing else will pop up for her to deal with on top of her normal responsibilities.

Like Marni in the story above, many companies are working with staff who have little to no experience with determining the recordability of OSHA events. Not only are they required to brush up on OSHA’s rules and regulations, but smaller teams are required to educate themselves because there aren’t any experienced members to pass on their knowledge. This is another area where technology can help newer, less tenured teams complete their OSHA filings. 

One of the larger challenges Marni is facing is determining recordability of an event based on the description and notes left at the time of the event with information scattered in different places. This is a major limitation OSHA teams can experience around self-developed systems (such as free-form builders) lacking centralization.  Files and communication that are scattered among different systems lead to teams hunting down information to complete the required forms. More powerful technology platforms, such as Aclaimant, keep all documentation (like return-to-work events, doctors' notes, follow-up emails, etc.) stored and easily accessible, to help determine recordability, and also as backup corroboration if OSHA requires more information. 

The issue Marni is dealing with is one that we addressed in our previous blog, Ace it on Accuracy, of needing to switch between systems to contact or follow up with the employee that originally reported the event. This issue duplicates itself when she needs to also figure out where the additional documentation is, including the need to sort back through email correspondence which hopefully is easily searchable and tied back to the event. 

Once Marni does have all the information gathered, she can finally begin assessing the OSHA event. As we mentioned before, depending on the team member, some teams have little to no experience completing an OSHA filing. Having a technology partner that can help you establish best practices will relieve the stress and the burnout that Marni is careening towards. 

The Aclaimant platform centralizes your OSHA event information and modernizes your OSHA practices with configurable workflows to easily manage and evaluate your OSHA recordability. To tackle Marni’s last challenge of determining recordability effectively, Aclaimant offers OSHA Insights, a tool powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning, that uses keyword analysis to scan your OSHA events and assign a likely recordability status. 

To learn more about the  Aclaimant platform, schedule a free demo with our team today.