An OSHA compliance officer will start by looking over your OSHA 300 Log and other OSHA Recordkeeping Forms. These forms measure your company’s safety and health record. Failure to keep these records accurate and up-to-date can lead to OSHA fines. There are 3 OSHA Recordkeeping Forms:
• OSHA 300 Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses
• OSHA 300A Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses
• OSHA 301 Injury and Illness Incident Report
Workers and union representatives have a right to request a copy of the employer’s OSHA recordkeeping documents of work-related injuries and illnesses. This record is known as the OSHA 300 Log, and is kept on a federal form.
What is Medical Treatment?
Medical treatment includes managing and caring for a patient for the purpose of combating disease or disorder. The following are not considered medical treatments and are NOT recordable:
• visits to a doctor or health care professional solely for observation or counseling;
• diagnostic procedures, including administering prescription medications that are used solely for diagnostic purposes; and
• any procedure that can be labeled first aid.
How do you count the number of days of restricted work activity or the number of days away from work?
Count the number of calendar days the employee was on restricted work activity or was away from work as a result of the recordable injury or illness. Do not count the day on which the injury or illness occurred in this number.
Begin counting days from the day after the incident occurs. If a single injury or illness involved both days away from work and days of restricted work activity, enter the total number of days for each. You may stop counting days of restricted work activity or days away from work once the total of either or the combination of both reaches 180 days.
Calculating Injury and Illness Incidence
An incidence rate is the number of recordable injuries and illnesses occurring among a given number of full- time workers ( usually 100 full-time workers) over a given period of time ( usually one year) . To evaluate your firm ’s injury and illness experience over time or to compare your firm ’s experience with that of your industry as a whole, you need to compute your incidence rate. Because a specific number of workers and a specific period of time are involved, these rates can help you identify problems in your workplace and/ or progress you may have made in preventing work-related injuries and illnesses.
OSHA Recordkeeping – OSHA 300 Illness & Injury Log
The OSHA 300A Summary must be completed and posted, where employees may easily see it, from February 1st through April 30th. Upon employee request, you have until the end of the next business day to provide copies of the OSHA Forms 300 Log, 300A Summary, and his or her individual OSHA 301 Incident Report.
If a case is limited to First Aid treatment and there are no days away from work, job transfer, or job restriction, do not include the case on your OSHA 300 Log. The case is not OSHA recordable, even if the First Aid treatment is administered at a health clinic, emergency room, hospital, or other medical treatment facility
Work-relatedness is presumed for injuries and illnesses occurring in the work environment. Assume the injury or illness is recordable unless it is specifically addressed in the exceptions. If an injury or illness falls into one of the exceptions listed below, it is not work-related and it is not recordable. Work related exceptions include:
Present as a member of the general public.
Symptoms arise in workplace but are solely due to non-work related event or exposure.
Voluntary participation in a wellness program. • Eating, drinking, or preparing food or drink for personal consumption.
Personal tasks outside assigned working hours.
Personal grooming, self-medication for non-work-related conditions, or intentionally self-inflicted injuries.
Motor vehicle accident occurring in a parking lot or access road during a normal commute to or from work.
Common cold or flu.
Mental illness, unless employee voluntarily provides a medical opinion from a Physician or other Licensed Health Care Professional (PLHCP) that affirms the mental illness is work-related.
