Four barriers to cultivating a safety culture in ASCs

Surgery centers have obstacles to overcome when striving for “top-notch quality and safety,” according to One Medical Passport, an ASC software provider.

Four obstacles and how to overcome them:

1. Resource scarcity. Provide staff with the tools they need to comply with safety protocols, including additional training when appropriate. Consider how center shutdowns during the pandemic have affected education and training.

2. Time constraints. Address inefficiencies in areas such as patient outreach and administrative paperwork to free up time for focusing on safety.

3. Ineffective leadership. Leaders who actively engage in safety seminars and other improvement efforts will cultivate an environment in which employees feel comfortable reporting mistakes.

4. Unclear communication channels. ASCs should have “an organized, robust system in place for recording feedback related to safety,” according to One Medical Passport.

NTSB Cites Safety Culture Failure In Air Ambulance Crash

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced on Tuesday that the Jan. 29, 2019, crash of a Bell 407 air ambulance helicopter in Zaleski, Ohio, was caused by the operator’s “inadequate management of safety.” The helicopter, which was only certified to operate in visual flight conditions, collided with trees in a heavily wooded area after failing to maintain altitude following inadvertent flight into instrument meteorological conditions. All three crew members onboard were killed.

As previously reported by AVweb, the aircraft was operated by Survival Flight Inc. and was en route to pick up a patient from Holzer Meigs hospital in Pomeroy, Ohio. According to the NTSB, a thorough preflight weather evaluation had not been conducted prior to the accident flight. The board found (PDF) that pilots and operations staff at the company routinely failed to comply with preflight risk assessment procedures, noting that noncompliance with those procedures had become “normalized by Survival Flight’s deficient safety culture.” Company employees also reported in post-accident interviews that they encountered pressure from management “to operate flights in challenging conditions and to take flights that other helicopter air ambulance services turned down due to inclement weather.”

“This accident was all but invited by the actions and culture of Survival Flight,” said NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt. “Unfortunately, we have seen yet another case of how a poor safety culture can lead to tragedy.” The NTSB also cited inadequate FAA oversight of Survival Flight’s risk management program and the FAA’s failure to require helicopter air ambulance operators to have safety management systems as contributing factors in the accident.

Parliament supports jail for bosses on mine deaths

Australia’s toughest mine safety laws passed in Queensland Parliament today with executives facing up to 20 years’ jail if Queensland mine and quarry workers die because of their criminal negligence.

Mines Minister Dr Anthony Lynham said establishing industrial manslaughter as an offence in mines and quarries was another key reform by the Palaszczuk Government to protect the state’s 50,000 mine and quarry workers.

“This offence sends the clear message to employers and senior officers that the safety and health of their workers is paramount,” Dr Lynham said.

“In the past two years we’ve had eight workers die, and a gas explosion in an underground coal mine has put five miners in hospital.

“It’s not acceptable.

“Safety on a mine site is everybody’s responsibility.

“But a safety culture needs to be modelled right from the top and creating the offence of industrial manslaughter is to ensure senior company officers do all they can to create a safe mine site.

Businesses can make or break the first stage of reopening

The seven metrics needed for a Phase 1 opening have been met, but it’s worth keeping in mind that the metrics that public health officials and politicians look at don’t apply exactly the same way to rural small communities and wildly dense metropolises alike. That’s one reason that the businesses that are permitted to reopen are responsible for creating their own standard operating procedures (SOPs) in order to keep their employees safe and ensure that the pandemic remains manageable in our region. Those procedures will need to include not just continued testing, but also screening in the form of questions each employee will have to answer, such as “Do you feel well?” and “Have you been exposed to anyone who has tested positive for Coronavirus?”

Two people, one in safety vest and helmet, speak in a room.Author Samantha Lushtak, right, is an environmental health and safety specialist. Photo provided. It will be up to business owners to implement a safety culture that ensures safety, compliance, and honesty among their workforce. Business owners who aren’t used to being safety specialists will have to take on that role to some extent, as they incorporate public health direction into their own plans to successfully reopen.

Business owners will have to create a safety culture in which employees will be comfortable answering the screening questionnaires suggested by Public Health Director Frank Kruppa truthfully. Employers will need to quickly create or adjust their safety cultures so that employees will not be afraid to answer in the affirmative about a potential COVID contact or be nervous about lost wages, missing out on a promotion, or some other career or income damaging prospect should they be turned away at the door.

Experts seek thorough study on water bodies near LG Polymers

As per Greater Vizag Municipal Corporation (GVMC) officials, water samples will be collected from these water bodies and sent to laboratories to test. the reslts are expected back by Monday. However, experts wanted APPCB staff to do the tests as they have better testing facilities.

Toxic chemicals released from the LG Polymers may also make their way to the sea, causing marine pollution and loss of marine life. “Here is an opportunity for researchers to generate information from this accident. But there is no such effort. It is due to the total absence of a safety culture in this country,” said Dr Babu Rao Kalapala, a former scientist from the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT).

He said the accident on Friday was preventable. ‘The styrene accident was a failure to inspect and enforce safety on the part of the government authorities and sheer negligence and incompetence on the part of LG Polymers. No amount of financial compensation can exonerate those responsible for the crime.”

“Despite the opacity at the government level, it is evident that a failure to properly manage storage of styrene led to this accident. It is well known that styrene has a tendency to self polymerise at temperatures above 20 degrees C. There are storage standards in Europe and other countries that must be adhered to. There is none in India. Companies have to follow the standards in their own interest but in this case LG Polymers failed,” he added.

West Australia: McGowan Government to hold urgent Farm Safety Summit … As stated by Industrial Relations Minister Bill Johnston:

“The Agriculture industry is 10 times more dangerous than the mining industry, so we need Western Australian farmers to address their safety culture.

“The high cost of workers’ compensation in the Agricultural sector demonstrates their safety culture is inadequate.

“Not only are farm workers and their family subject to working on dangerous farm sites, it’s also costing the industry excessive amounts of money.

“It’s time for the farming industry to improve their culture, this will save lives and money.

“I look forward to meeting with the farming groups to discuss how we can improve safety on site.”

While female and minority science PhDs’ ideas are more novel they’re often overlooked

Women and non-white researchers offer science more original concepts but their contributions are less likely to be adopted by others or lead to academic positions, a new US study has found.

A ‘diversity paradox’ has been noted before: diversity breeds innovation, yet under-represented groups that diversify organisations have less successful careers within them. Now researchers from Stanford University show for the first time that the paradox holds for scientists as well.

A team led by Bas Hofstra and Daniel McFarland amassed data on around 1.2 million PhD recipients in the US between 1977 and 2015, following their careers into publishing and faculty positions. They used census and social security data to infer students’ gender and whether they belonged to minorities under-represented in science.

To measure novelty and innovation, the team used language processing techniques, such as machine learning and text analysis, to identify terms in PhD theses that represented ‘meaningful concepts’. Next, they identified when pairs of concepts were first related to one another. By adding up the number of these original, related ideas within each thesis, they developed a measure of novelty. The next stage was to calculate how much of this novel thinking had any impact. They measured how often a thesis’s new linked ideas were taken up in other documents.

“Stay Safe” – Is it the New “Have a Nice Day”? In a COVID-19 world, I’ve found that “have a nice day” has been supplanted by “stay safe.” In just a few weeks, our focus has shifted from a desire for a pleasant experience to a safe one, which recognizes that something many people simply have taken for granted, our health and safety, is not a given in our current world.

As an environmental, health, and safety lawyer who has worked for 30 years in the oil, gas, and chemical industries, I’m pleased to see this focus on health and safety – that’s our mantra – our careers and our lives are about improving the health and safety of people.

The COVID-19 health crisis has brought to the forefront of our collective consciousness the importance of putting safety first, including by social distancing, sheltering in place, and minimizing contact for those people engaged in essential businesses, like those working in the food supply chain, the oil and gas industry, healthcare, and other critical infrastructure sectors.

It also highlights how complex even simple aspects of being safe can be. As I struggle to get preteens and teenagers to distance or follow other rules, when their natural inclination is to connect and engage with each other, to hug, to shake hands, to play games that involve contact, it calls to mind the challenges that companies face in employees’ natural instincts to get a job done quickly and efficiently… even though that may diverge from the safest way to do that task. Achieving a strong “safety culture” in complex manufacturing operations is a continuous improvement process at which our clients are constantly working. And this is with employees and contractors who want to work safely. It’s easy to slip into an old habit of how you used to accomplish a task or tempting to try to get the job done more quickly.

We see the attention, commitment, and steps taken to keep everyone safe in the COVID-19 health crisis. This type of awareness and attention should be given to “routine” hazards that we face every day. We can all take a lesson from our current experience and perhaps carry forward with our new farewell phrase, “stay safe,” to remind ourselves what we are all trying to accomplish.

Safety violations ground historic warbirds that visit Torrance annually

The FAA has grounded 10 historic aircraft that a nonprofit group regularly used for public flights, including at several Southern California airports — such as Torrance’s Zamperini Field — after finding serious safety violations in the wake of an October crash that killed seven, though the organization said in a statement it has a “commitment to safety.”

The Federal Aviation Administration release a seven-page report last week that probed the Oct. 2 crash of the historic World War II-era B-17G bomber in Connecticut during an emergency landing; one of the crash’s victims was the pilot, also a Long Beach resident. The report said that evidence showed the Collings Foundation “lacked a safety culture” when operating the bomber, nicknamed the Flying Fortress.

Hunter Chaney, director of marketing for the foundation, said on Monday, March 31, that Collings was reviewing its options; but, Chaney added, the group was not allowed to comment on the FAA accident investigation or given a heads-up before the decision to ground the aircraft was made.

The crew chief for the Flying Fortress, whose duties included handling emergencies, told investigators he was “unaware of basic information concerning operations,” including the existence of a required safety management system and had received only on-the-job training, the report said.

What does the coronavirus mean for the fire safety sector?

For risk management professionals the Coronavirus Emergency has prompted myriad concerns to seek out practical solutions on the hoof in a fast-moving national crisis, both on a micro level and a macro level. Informed grassroots pragmatism aside, however, we should be reminded that for more than a decade the NFCC (National Fire Chiefs Council) has been developing their strategic intentions for the fire and rescue services in the event of a flu pandemic.

Emergency preparedness for such a crisis as this, of course, has been a dominant responsibility of the Cabinet Office Civil Contingencies Secretariat from which stems the framework for National Resilience to advise community planners, local emergency responders and local business continuity plans. So, too, the British armed services has its own dedicated DFR (Defence, Fire and Rescue) – a single, integrated, regionally based fire risk management organisation.

These are the national strategists. At the micro level of community safety, which concerns all hands-on risk management practitioners at the workface, the following topical viewpoints will be found, we trust, instructive.

Seeing how other chemists do their work can be an eye-opening experience, in more ways than one

Seeing how other chemists do their work can be an eye-opening experience, in more ways than one

[Mineworkers want mining firms to heighten safety standards to prevent coronavirus spread] (www.myjoyonline.com/business/…}

The Ghana Mineworkers’ Union (GMWU) of the Trades Union Congress says it is deeply concerned by the novel coronavirus pandemic and its potential consequences on the health and safety of its members.

GMWU said the operational and business implications of the disruption caused by the pandemic for mining companies and the industry at large is also a major source of concern.

“The Union notes the bold and concrete steps taken by the Government of Ghana so far in response to the fight against the spread of the novel coronavirus and wish to commend the Government especially the President for the show of leadership.

“The Union also commends all employers, our social partners, within the mining industry for proactively developing response measures targeted at preventing the spread of the virus which we now know is present on our soil,” General Secretary of the Union, Abdul-Moomin Gbana, said in a press release issued on Thursday.

CHIRP Maritime Releases Annual Digest

The Digest contains a summary of reports and insight articles covering a broad spectrum of maritime disciplines and was published thanks to the generous donations of 17 sponsors from the international maritime community.

“The reports this year are as varied as ever, but some are sadly familiar,” says editor Captain Alan Loynd. “Basic mistakes are still being made, despite our efforts. In an era when young seafarers may not always have more experienced colleagues to guide and monitor them at all times, we offer a means for them to learn from the mistakes of others and absorb the lessons which may help them to avoid making the same mistakes.”

He continues: “We firmly believe everyone who works at sea deserves to return safely to their family at the end of their tour of duty. This should be the ambition of every ship manager, every administrator and everyone else who supervises the business of shipping, but there is still a long way to go. Seafarers’ lives matter, but there are still people who do not fully embrace a safety culture.”

The Digest has sections on human factors, deck safety, engineering, pilotage, navigation and safety culture and includes examples from commercial shipping, yachts and fishing vessels.

‘Weak engineering management’ led to Columbia Gas disaster, federal prosecutors say

Columbia Gas of Massachusetts on Monday formally took blame for failing to safeguard against overpressurization that it long knew could lead to “a dangerous and catastrophic” event like the explosions that rocked the Merrimack Valley in 2018 — and killed an 18-year-old.

Columbia president Mark Kempic took the witness stand in US District Court, swore an oath, and told the judge he was pleading guilty to a criminal felony charge, on behalf of the company, because it was guilty of reckless disregard and flagrant indifference to minimum safety standards.

The guilty plea, along with a $53 million fine and a promise to leave the state were among the conditions of a negotiated plea bargain designed to bring legal resolution to a community still reeling from the disaster.

Leonel Rondon, 18, was killed in the blasts that overtook Lawrence, Andover, and North Andover in September 2018.

Flames and explosions forced residents and business owners from their properties; 131 buildings were destroyed.

It all was avoidable, federal prosecutors said.

The company failed to monitor for overpressurization or heed warnings, and it knew at least one inexperienced field engineer was in over his head, federal prosecutor Neil Gallagher said.

The company’s reliance on inconsistent and outdated records and maps, along with lack of communication demonstrated “weak engineering management,” he said.

(Task Force To Tackle Gas Policy Implementation Irregularities) [http://www.thetidenewsonline.com/2020/03/09/task-force-to-tackle-gas-policy-implementation-irregularities/]

The Rivers Commissioner for Energy and Natural Resources, Dr Peter Medee has said that the state government will soon inaugurate a gas monitoring task Force in the state to complement the effort of the federal government in compliance to the new task policy introduced by the Department of Petroleum Resources. (DPR) The commissioner disclosed this during a technical workshop organised by the department of petroleum resources (DPR) for LPG Depot operators and gas users in Rivers State at the Horlikin Events Centre in Port Harcourt recently. The Commissioner said, “in realisation of the significant role and benefits of the state, especially in safety culture, monitoring and elimination of sharp practices in the LPG Depot operators, the Rivers State government will soon set up a gas monitoring task force, as an effort to complement the activities of the DPR and the security agencies to enhance effective management system in the implementation of the new gas policy in Rivers State.” The commissioner said the Committee when constituted, will help to enhance the implementation of the new policies by checking some infiltrations and irregularities.

How Old Ammunition Gone Bad Nearly Blew up This American Aircraft Carrier

Key Point: Older bombs, bad storage and handling, along with human error can cause big problems. Thankfully the USS Forrestal was not lost, but many lives were.

Two deadly collisions involving U.S. Navy destroyers in June and August 2017 may have cost the lives of up to sixteen sailors, leading the Navy to declare a day-long operational pause to reflect upon its safety culture. That such similar accidents took place in such close proximity reflects stresses and failings common to the maritime fighting branch.

In the 1960s, the Navy also suffered a series of deadly accidents aboard its carriers. In their wake came major reforms addressing the inherent dangers of operating ships packed full of explosive munitions, fuel and jet planes. This three-part series will examine why each of the accidents occurred, how the crew responded and the lessons that were drawn from the tragedies.

(https://www.unlv.edu/news/accomplishments/soumya-upadhyay-7)

Soumya Upadhyay (Health Care Administration) recently published “Hospital Staffing Patterns and Safety Culture Perceptions: The Mediating Role of Perceived Teamwork and Perceived Handoffs” in the Health Care Management Review, a recognized journal in the health care management field.

Nurses Want to Participate in Antimicrobial Stewardship Programs but Often Don’t Feel Welcome

Nurses think they should play a professional role in antimicrobial stewardship (AS) programs, but a culture of safety at hospitals that focuses on other kinds of providers often hinders nurse involvement. Investigators with Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, and the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, used a cross-sectional survey to gather data at 9 hospitals, ranging in size from 42 to 562 beds serving both pediatric and adult patients in 2 different metropolitan areas.

The study, in the American Journal of Infection Control, draws on data collected from 558 nurses and includes comments from 91 nurses with 50 statements saying that **the primary barrier to AS programs are organizational factors that included a perceived lack of a safety culture. **

When they were asked about what support they received to participate in AS programs, 43% and 27.3% of respondents said that they received encouragement from nursing leaders and physician prescribers respectively.

“Nurses identified the top engagement strategies as formal educational offerings, empowerment techniques to enhance communication, and soliciting nurse input in antibiotic use discussions,” the study states. “Whereas nurses expressed a desire to participate in stewardship processes, a lack of knowledge, safety culture, and poorly defined roles limited their ability to steward. Ninety percent of nurses reported at least one barrier to stewardship, although 95% perceived that they functioned as stewards.”

Benefits of implementing a positive safety culture include personal growth, organizational development and outside-the-box thinking.

Safety culture is an important key to successful safety performance in the aircraft ground handling environment. The East Asia region has distinctive cultural peculiarities that require specific organization safety culture promotion initiatives.

According to KH Kwak, Swissport Korea’s head of quality, health, safety and environment (QHSE) and training, there are some cultural traits that may increase the fear of repercussion throughout the ground handling industry in the Far East and other parts of Asia. These cultural features include respect for the rules, team and group culture, respect for superiors and the concept of “keeping face.”

“Asians may not actively express their thoughts or opinions compared to people of other continents. This phenomenon can be seen as a result of rigid up-and-down relationships among employees. However, many Asian countries have tried to solve these problems not only in the ground handling industry but also in various other fields,” says Jaeseong Lim, CEO of UBjet Aviation. “Also, Asian VIPs usually set great store by formality and escort service. Conversely, CIQ [China Inspection and Quarantine] officers are not cooperative to businesspeople. They are reluctant to provide a private jet’s passengers with special convenience, based on the idea that it’s unfair to give privileges to some people, even to corporate executives, as they are same with passengers who take a commercial flight. So, providing a seamless service for the passengers is difficult sometimes.”

Weigh in on WSU’s health and safety culture

In recent years, WSU has placed a renewed emphasis on integrating health and safety into all phases of our operations. Help us evaluate our progress toward a safer, healthier workplace by completing a short survey.

The Washington Department of Enterprise Services’ Risk Management Office in Olympia is requesting that all employees at Washington institutions of higher education, including WSU, complete the online safety survey. The results will help WSU evaluate its health and safety programs and improve our safety culture.

THE SURVEY CLOSES FRIDAY, FEB. 21 AT 4 P.M.

Health secretary welcomes finding that NHS staff ‘happier than last year’

The latest NHS Staff Survey has stated that its employees are happier and more likely to recommend where they work than last year.

The 2019 survey was issued to over 1.1 million staff across 300 NHS organisations within England.

Health secretary Matt Hancock described ‘every area of morale’ as increasing.

Matt Hancock ✔ @MattHancock Brilliant that NHS staff are happier and more likely to recommend where they work than last year: www.nhsstaffsurveys.com/Page/1085… …

Embedded video 381 3:32 PM - Feb 18, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 1,225 people are talking about this Themes and questions included equality; wellbeing; quality of appraisals; safety culture; level of pay and managers’ support in ‘personal crises’.

Mr Hancock said the findings feed into the Government’s ‘plans to make the NHS the very best place to work’ but also acknowledged that ‘levels of bullying and harassment are too high’.

NBC 10 I-Team: Defense against road rage

The AAA Foundation conducts a traffic safety culture index, which includes specific questions about aggressive driving and road rage.

95 million drivers admit to yelling at another driver. 91 million say they’ve honked their horn. 67 million drivers admit to making angry gestures, while 49 million say they’ve tried to block another driver from changing lanes.

“So many, unfortunately, view driving as a competition, a timed competition, how many car lengths can I get in front of that other vehicle,” said Imondi, who added that drivers in the northeast have experienced even higher percentages.

Years of Safety Disputes: Inside the Company that Flew Kobe Bryant

Before the tragedy involving Mr. Bryant, Island Express had four crashes since 1985 that damaged or destroyed helicopters, all under the company’s previous management, according to records.

Tensions over the company’s safety culture simmered even after the 2008 crash as the company came under new management several years later, according to people involved in the discussions.

The F.A.A. recorded an additional “incident” in the summer of 2018, when two Island Express helicopters were started up too close to one another, causing significant damage to the blades on both aircraft.

As recently as 2017, Kurt Deetz, a pilot and former safety manager at Island Express, resigned from his safety responsibilities, he said, over “differences of opinion” about how the company’s safety management system should be run.

East Kent baby deaths: Former trust chair demands openness A coroner ruled Harry’s death was “wholly avoidable” and was contributed to by hospital neglect.

Inspectors at the Care Quality Commission are considering a possible criminal investigation, and Kent County Councillor Karen Constantine has demanded a public inquiry.

The Labour councillor said: “If we have to stop short of a public inquiry, then we need a deep dive into the safety culture, and I think it needs to be broader than maternity.”

Government to release report flagging safety culture at Southwest, WSJ reports

A government report flagging safety culture at Southwest Airlines is due to come out as soon as the end of the week, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The Office of the Inspector General highlighted several concerns about the safety culture of Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) and the Federal Aviation Administration’s oversight of the airline in a draft of the report, the newspaper said.

Southwest has been the subject of multiple safety-related issues recently, including a proposed $3.9 million fine from the FAA over allegedly incorrect weight calculations, in addition to the carrier allegedly receiving special treatment in regard to approval to commence flights to Hawaii.

A Southwest spokesperson said the company has communicated its “disappointment” in the draft report to the inspector general and pushed back on some of the report’s contents.

“The success of our business depends, in and of itself, on the Safety of our operation, and while we work to improve each and every day, any implication that we would tolerate a relaxing of standards is unfounded,” the spokesperson said.

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The WSJ said that in the draft report nearly two-thirds of the 46 FAA employees interviewed raised concerns about the culture at Southwest. The report stated “it is clear that the Agency is not yet effectively navigating the balance between industry collaboration and managing safety risks at the carrier,” according to the report.