Good Practices
Preparation of a scoring-based occupational health management assessment tool and its utilization for the first step to improve workplace
2020 Volume 2 Issue 1 Article ID: 2020-GPS03
Details
2020 Volume 2 Issue 1 Article ID: 2020-GPS03
At this factory, there coexist many workplaces, including but not limited to those related to the manufacturing division, the testing & research division, and indirect divisions. Accordingly, a variety of occupational health risks are present, potentially related to the following operations, among others: handling heavy materials, such as charging chemical substances or raw materials used for filling products; exposure to harmful chemicals, loud noises caused by extruders, etc.; work in hot environments that expose operators to great risk of heat stroke; other VDT operations; and passive smoking.
To date, work-site observation patrols using check sheets, etc. have been conducted for the purposes of preventing workers’ health impairment, managing chemical substances, etc. However, we have sometimes felt that occupational health management at the workplace does not comprehensively and adequately comply with the laws and regulations concerning occupational health, partly because these laws and regulations have frequently been amended. In addition, the degree of recognition given the significance of observed challenges and judgment on how to address challenges vary even among Health Officers, which has made us feel the necessity of establishing a method of objective assessment.
Under these circumstances, we have developed a tool (“Occupational Health Management Assessment”) to quantify the status of compliance with required occupational health management, in order to optimize the status of occupational health management based on the laws and regulations concerning occupational health, as well as to identify operations potentially causing or increasing occupational health risks at workplaces and to improve the assessment of occupational health management.
• To quantify the status of compliance with required occupational health management: Rate of compliance with required occupational health management (%)= Assessment score/Requirement score
- The status of occupational health management of one’s own workplace can be understood (using another workplace as a benchmark).
- Expressing the status in numbers can increase motivation to improve the present status. (With a target compliance rate of 100%, the extent of improvement at one’s own workplace can be understood step by step.)
• To equalize assessment using a new form entitled “Occupational Health Assessment Sheet”
[Identification and improvement of operations potentially causing or increasing occupational health risks]• To identify operations potentially causing or increasing occupational health risks both on-site and from the Health Officer’s perspective
• To optimize compliance with the laws and regulations concerning occupational health, and improve occupational health management at the workplace
[Promotion of autonomous activities for improvement by upgrading the occupational health management level of those responsible for workplace safety and health, such as foremen]• To repeat assessments every year in order to make foremen, etc. securely gain knowledge of occupational health management
1. Frequency: once annually for each workplace
2. Time required: hearing (about 30 minutes)+on-site review (about 1 hour)
3. Workplaces assessed: 64 in total (including the manufacturing division, testing & research division, indirect divisions, and affiliated companies among others)
4. Assessor: one Health Officer, Assessee(s): one or two persons such as foreman/foremen (including the person responsible for safety and health management)
5. Outlined methods of conducting the assessment (to update in the current year the Occupational Health Management Assessment Sheet that was used for the previous year)
(1) In the Occupational Health Management Assessment Sheet, operations potentially causing or increasing occupational health risks are divided into 9 categories (i.e., chemical substances, loud noises, heavy materials, hot environment, office, VDT, separation of smoking and non-smoking areas, radiation, and laser). In the sheet for each category, management matters required by the laws/regulations and internal rules, etc. are described. In the cells provided for assessment and requirement scores for each management item in a category, 1 point or 0 is entered (refer to Fig. 1). In the Reporting Sheet, the total score is calculated for each category. Regarding matters with low compliance rates for which the present approach is found to be inadequate, the Health Officer’s proposals for improvement and/or comments are described. These will then be communicated to the relevant workplace as feedback (refer to Fig. 2).
Occupational Health Management Assessment Sheet: (Example) Chemical Substances Sheet
Reporting Sheet
(2) On-site review: The location, contents, etc. of the operation subject to hearing are reviewed, and the degree of improvement achieved since the previous assessment is evaluated.
(i) The overall compliance rate of the entire factory was 80% in fiscal year 2007. This increased to 99.3% in fiscal year 2011 (refer to Fig. 3).
Changes over the years in the overall compliance rate for each category
(ii) The number of workplaces with compliance rates <70% was 18 in fiscal year 2007. This was reduced to zero in and after fiscal year 2008. At the same time, an increasing number of workplaces achieved a compliance rate ≥90% (refer to Fig. 4).
Overall compliance rates analyzed by the extent of achievement
(iii) The level of occupational health management over the entire factory was upgraded. The number of workplaces maintaining high compliance rates increased.
(iv) What we plan to do in the future is as follows: on the basis of the risk assessment results at a workplace, we will incorporate high risk operations into the Occupational Health Management Assessment, and support continued improvement to reduce risks; and at the same time, we will expand utilization of the tool from that of a conventional evaluation tool to a risk management tool, including GHS-based management of chemical substances and selection of adequate protective personal equipment.
(1) In a factory in which various plant and occupations coexist, we assessed occupational health management using a single assessment sheet and unified and cross-validated the assessments into a single compatible reporting format. In addition, we expressed the present status of management in numbers, which allowed those working on-site to clearly understand where their own workplace was positioned in terms of occupational health management, and what challenges they need to address at their own workplace. We consider that their understanding drove the promotion of improvement at their workplaces and contributed to their increased motivation for this improvement.
(2) The Occupational Health Management Assessment Sheet we developed is based on the relevant laws and regulations as well as related internal rules, etc. Therefore, this Sheet could be prepared by any interested party. When preparing a zero-based assessment sheet, it is better to initially select prioritized items while aiming at smooth introduction of assessment with the sheet than to prepare it with all items.
(3) When scoring an assessment, it is desirable to have standardized criteria for awarding the “1 Point” and “0 Points” among the assessors and to document these criteria (in particular, the reason for giving “0 Points” should be described in the Reporting Sheet.)
(4) The occupational health management assessment is repeated every year, which deepens the understanding of assessors about the relevant laws and regulations, and makes them more frequently involved in improvement at workplaces. This Sheet will therefore serve as a good teaching material for OJT.
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The committee for continuing education of Japan Society for Occupational Health has responsibility for the synthesis and dissemination of educational opportunities in occupational health, including selection of Good Practice Samples (GPS). This good practice sample was awarded and released in Japanese as the best good practice by the committee (https://gps.sanei.or.jp/). With the permission of the committee for continuing education of Japan Society for Occupational Health and the editorial boards for Environmental and Occupational Health Practice, the GPS was translated into English for publication.
