The Occupational Health Safety Network (OHSN) is a free, net-founded surveillance procedure designed by using NIOSH to decrease preventable accidents among healthcare personnel. The tool is a voluntary process that makes it possible for near actual-time, tracking of occupational injuries by means of type, occupation, location, and risk factors using data already collected by healthcare facilities for OSHA reporting. The process allows for healthcare facilities to:
- Identify the most common injuries taking place at their facility and the way they occurred.
- Generate injury data reports as needed to meet OSHA regulatory and Joint Commission accreditation requirements.
- Evaluate whether interventions are effective at reducing injuries by monitoring trends over time.
- Access innovative intervention tools developed by NIOSH and other OHSN participating facilities.
From January 1, 2012 via September 30, 2014, 112 U.S. Healthcare organizations reported 3,972 slips, trips, and falls accidents (STF); 4,674 patient handling and moving injuries ; and 2,034 office violence injuries for a whole of 10,680 OSHA-recordable accidents in these categories.
See the latest article in the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) for more information on the data collected.
Future improvements to OHSN include plans to create a module to systematically collect information on sharps injuries and blood and body fluid exposures among healthcare practitioners that will assist in future prevention.
While OHSN started in healthcare, the system can be applied to nearly any industry with computer and internet access where occupational injury data are routinely collected.
Click here to start the enrollment process.
For more information visit the OHSN website.