subject: So You Think You Can Trust Your Incident Reporting System. Bet You Cant! [print this page] Perhaps the most dangerous outcome of a paper-based incident reporting system is that its inherent management complexities result in many incidents never being reported. Incidents that remain unreported also remain un-investigated, leaving the root cause in place for re occurrence. A good software system will help eliminate these problems.
Why do companies use paper based incident reporting?
Of course there are many reasons companies use a paper-based system, which often involves little more than filling out and filing an incident report form. For many smaller companies, a paper-based system is actually easier to manage due to the low number of incidents. However, when these companies - and their incident numbers - grow, the paper-based system simply remains in place, becoming harder and harder to manage.
Another common reason for the existence of paper-based reporting is a lack of importance placed by the company on reporting workplace incidents, or even on workplace safety in general. Because Australian law requires each company to have an incident reporting system in place, the seeming simplicity of a paper-based system appears to be the easy option to fulfill legal requirements.
A financial and legal argument for incident reporting software
While a paper-based system may fulfill your legal requirements, that does not been it negates your legal responsibilities concerning an incident. When under legal investigation, courts will look at all due-diligence efforts made by a company to improve workplace safety. An incident that has been recorded and filed will do little more than show that the company was aware of the incident. When the company can clearly indicate that actions have been made to investigate and eliminate the cause of the incident, a court is more likely to look favorably upon the company.
So why would incident reporting software help you?
When your incident reporting software contains the following capabilities, not only are you better able to reduce incidents, you maintain a thorough record of all efforts you have made.
1. End-to-end functionality: Must include comprehensive functionality for reporting, investigation, assigning corrective actions and final graphical reports.
2. Simple usability: A system that is easy to use will actually increase the likelihood that an incident is reported.
3. Automatic graphical reports: A good reporting software system will automatically turn all your data into easy-to-read reports.
4. Easy distribution of info: The ability to assign investigators and track updates automatically helps to ensure that incidents are dealt with efficiently and that key personnel are made aware of issues relevant to them.
5. Mandatory corrective actions: A system that requires you to analyze and eliminate the root cause of the problem by providing a corrective action, or a series of actions, before the report can be closed will help you eliminate the possibility of recurrence.
6. Online functionality: Online incident reporting systems provide two features that are hard to achieve with a locally hosted system. One, they provide instant connectivity between all company locations, no matter how many there are or how far apart, and two, they can be accessed twenty four-seven from anywhere.
What is available?
There is not a lot on the market as far as incident reporting software goes, but what is available can be very effective. Start your research with a Google keyword search and see what suits your specific needs. Try the keywords "OHS incident reporting" or "incident reporting software" and you will be off to a good start.
