SafetyInsights.org

Not much to add to the attached. Woods et al. in “Behind Human Error” discuss the necessary adaptation required by operators. That is, they argue “In contrast with the view that practitioners are the main source of unreliability in an otherwise successful system, close examination of how the system works in the face of everyday… Continue reading Sharp end adaptations and complexity

This study explored individual factors that contribute to risk of shift work disorder and particularly in the context of sleep hygiene. Several surveys, including the Shift Work Disorder Questionnaire, Sleep Hygiene Index and Morningnness-Eveningness Questionnare were used among 202 nurses. Sleep hygiene is a set of behavioural and environmental practices to assist with insomnia and… Continue reading The role of sleep hygiene in the risk of Shift Work Disorder in nurses

I just summarised a recent paper that explored the role that regulatory violations/penalties have on repeat violation behaviour (and interestingly, how OHSAS 18001 is involved in this relationship). Will be posted in the coming week or two. This paper provided a very brief literature review of prior work showing the efficacy of violations on firm… Continue reading Regulatory/OSHA safety violations/penalties and the effect on organisational outcome

This explored whether providing a safe workplace improves or hinders organisational survival (survival being how long the company lasts/remains financially capable). They studied over 100,000 firms over 25 years in Oregon, measuring links between a firm’s short-term claims cost (STCC) and long-term claims cost (STCC) for disabling injuries, with an interest in a firm’s risk… Continue reading The Tension Between Worker Safety and Organization Survival

I re-read the AIHS’s OHS BOK chapter on “Organisational Culture: Reviewed and Repositioned” from David Borys. I found the two attached redrafted extracts pretty interesting – highlighting the apparent empirical and practical challenges of safety culture. The chapter also included a brief but interesting discussion around how climate and culture “are metaphors we use to… Continue reading A critical view of safety culture: AIHS OHS BOK

This conference paper very briefly described a human factors analysis of rail freight yard performance, based on observations, expert elicitation and task mapping. Five freight yards, 35 hours of observations, and >30 staff interviews were included. Whether if you work in rail or not, this paper gives a really brief and high-level overview of how… Continue reading Human performance in the rail freight yard

This 2004 paper used diary methodology to track employee self-reported incidents/events and errors (including recovery from errors), and also the reasons why they would or wouldn’t normally report that event. 21 operators in a chemical plant over 15 working days completed the diaries. Providing background: ·        It’s said that while use of incident reporting schemes are… Continue reading Biases in incident reporting databases: an empirical study in the chemical process industry

“You’re biased” is probably a common expression on social media debates. Noting this, decades of research has highlighted that everybody has their own heuristics and biases. Indeed, biases are essential for functioning in a complex world. It’s not a dirty word, but does have important implications. Nevertheless, a “perceived asymmetry in susceptibility to bias” exists.… Continue reading The bias blind spot: Perceptions of bias in self versus others

This systematic review evaluated whether Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is an adequate method to help decrease the recurrence of avoidable adverse events (AAE) in healthcare. 21 studies (from an initial pool of 127) met inclusion requirements. Results: Overall, this study found that “Although early studies suggested that RCAs are effective in promoting ideas for preventing… Continue reading How much of Root Cause Analysis translates to improve patient safety: A systematic review

As an alternative lens to yesterday’s post on the evidence surrounding safety culture interventions (* and however one wants to define the target of these interventions – safety culture, culture of safety, organisational culture focused on safety, managing culturally etc.), I’ve cherrypicked a few items from Reiman & Rollenhagen’s 2014 paper which explores some of… Continue reading Some debate around the construct of ‘safety culture’