OSHA uses three main terms for records you’ll keep at your organization with 11 or more employees: Recording, reporting and submitting.
Recording involves the act of tracking a work-related injury or illness by filling out and maintaining the appropriate forms and logs for the kind of incident being recorded. Each kind of company and each kind of incident has different requirements.
A recordable incident is any work-related illness or injury resulting in
· Death
· Unconsciousness
· Inability to work
· Restrictions to work activity
· Diagnosis of cancer or chronic, irreversible diseases
· Punctured eardrum
· Fractured or broken bones
· Medical treatment beyond first aid
While most work-related injuries and illnesses need to be recorded, the majority may not be reported to OSHA. Reporting involves notifying OSHA of workplace incidents that result in inpatient hospitalization, amputation, loss of an eye, or fatality. Incidents like these must be reported within a certain timeframe, based on the type of incident and outcome. For instance, any workplace incident resulting in death must be directly reported to OSHA, within 8 hours via the nearest OSHA office, to the 24 hour OSHA hotline, or the online reporting form.
According to SafetySkills, an online safety training service, “As of 2017, the only establishments that must electronically submit data from their 300A are those with 250 or more employees and those with 20 or more employees in certain high-risk industries. In these cases, employers must use OSHA’s Injury Tracking Application portal to submit OSHA 300A data by March 2 for the previous calendar year.” Therefore, submitting is similar to recording but doesn’t apply to all organizations.
At Emergent Safety, we offer regular safety audits to our customers so that together we can best analyze how to remove hazards from the workplace. To schedule, a safety audit with one of our OSHA-certified Safety Specialists contact us at 800.877.1390.