OSHA’S Top Priority: I2P2.

Are You Ready?

The I2P2 Injury and Illness Prevention Program has been in OSHA’s agenda since April 2010. OSHA, along with the ASSE, recently published a white paper urging President Obama to advance I2P2 and praised the possibility of making it a regulatory requirement in the near future.

What to expect from I2P2?

I2P2 is a proactive process to help employers find and fix workplace hazards before workers get injured. It can help reduce workplace injuries, illnesses, and fatalities, improve safety culture, and increase productivity while reducing turnover and costs. OSHA proposes the program with following six elements:

  1. Management Leadership
  2. Worker Participation
  3. Hazard Identification and Assessment
  4. Hazard Prevention and Control
  5. Education and Training
  6. Program Evaluation and Improvement

Why do you need I2P2?

OSHA believes that adoption of injury and illness prevention programs based on simple, sound, and proven principles will help millions of U.S. businesses improve their regulatory compliancedecrease the incidence of workplace injuries and illnesses, reduce costs (including significant reductions in workers’ compensation premiums) and enhance their overall business operations.

What you need to do?

If you have an existing injury and illness prevention plan in your company, you just need to review it as per the OSHA. If not, start gearing up before the enforcement is passed by following these 5 tips: 

  1. Standardize an effective Hazard Assessment System for your business and identify the areas within your company which bear high operational risks.
  2. Set up goals for your injury and illness prevention program.
  3. Formulate programs to lower operational risks and achieve the set goals.
  4. Ensure that employees are trained for implementing the program.
  5. Once implemented, regularly inspect and evaluate the program.

Conclusions

Despite the combined efforts of employers, workers, unions, safety professionals and regulators, more than 4,500 workers lose their lives and more than four million are seriously injured each year. Tens of thousands more die or are incapacitated because of occupational illnesses including many types of cancer and lung disease. The human toll from this loss is incalculable and the economic toll is enormous.

  • Many employers in the U.S. have been slow to adopt a workplace “safety culture” that emphasizes planning and carrying out work in the safest way possible.
  • Injury and illness prevention programs are based on proven managerial concepts that have been widely used in industry to bring about improvements in quality, environment and safety, and health performance.
  • Effective injury and illness prevention programs emphasize top-level ownership of the program, participation by employees, and a “find and fix” approach to workplace hazards.Injury and illness prevention programs need not be resource-intensive and can be adapted to meet the needs of any size organization.

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