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Best Practices in Workplace Surveillance
Florida Develops A Workplace Safety and Health Program Based on
Promising Practices of Other State Programs
Robert E. Nesbit, Charlene Vespi, and Dr Stuart M. Brooks
Purpose: In the fall of 1996 Florida's Division of Safety
began an ambitious plan to re-engineer their safety and health program
to include promising safety and health practices, implemented by other
states, into the Florida safety and health program. This paper
describes how the Division was re-engineered using promising practices
of other states to develop specific programs to address Florida's
workplace injury problems. The paper includes a discussion of the 1998
test results of the program.
Workplace Setting: The Florida Division of Safety and Florida
employers including construction, heavy industry, and service. The
Division of Safety developed specific measures for determining the
success of the promising practices project based on performance based
budgeting. These measures included reductions in the loss workday
injury rates, reductions in accident frequency rates, increases in the
services provided, decreases in the cost of providing services, and
customer satisfaction surveys.
Summary of Surveillance program: Databases were developed and
tracking systems were implemented to measure the successes and
failures of the project. Teams of managers and associates were
organized to rewrite inspection policy and procedure, design
databases, develop training materials, design a marketing plan,
develop specific goals and performance measures for the performance
based budget and gather input from Florida business owners,
associations, consultants, and employee representative groups. The
Division's statistical unit was reorganized and given new data
analysis tasks. New sources for gathering accident injury data were
developed and new processes for utilizing the data were implemented.
Implications for small business: Florida's re-engineered safety and
health program emphasized targeting for inspection employers with high
injury and illness rates. The employers were selected from the
Workers' Compensation "Lost Time" data set. Most important, the
program emphasized consultation, training, education, and safety
programs tailored to the employer's worksite.
Summary of observations: The new Division of Safety program was
tested for the first time starting in July 1998. The 1998 test
involved per and post-consultation services for 1,271 employers at
3,259 establishments. The 1998 pre and post-consultation survey
results at these establishments showed a total injury and illness
incidence rate decrease of 5.6 percent, declining from 12.4 injuries
and illnesses per 100 workers to 11.7 injuries and illnesses per 100
workers. The pre- and post-consultation lost/restricted workday injury
and illness rate decreased by 5.3 percent, overall dropping from 3.8
to 3.6 injuries and illnesses per 100 workers. The 1998 pre- and
post-consultation disabling compensable injury and illness incidence
rate decreased from 0.8 to 0.2 injuries and illnesses per 100 workers.
This change represents a drop in the post-consultation period of 75%
over the pre-consultation period. At a conservative estimate of
$11,105 per disabling compensable claim in Florida, this decrease
represents a savings of approximately $10.6 million on 957 claims.
PDF Document (2519 KB)
NOTE: This document is provided for historical purposes only.