The ultimate goal of the safety professional is to prevent incidents. That's a laudable goal. But we sometimes get so caught up in prevention that we tend to overlook another important aspect of our job: Reacting to incidents. The fact of the matter is that incidents, both natural and man-made, do happen. They always have and they always will.

But while we can't prevent all incidents, one variable we can control is the harm those incidents do. To minimize damage, we need to be prepared to react effectively when incidents occur. There are four tools organizations must use to prepare for the unexpected. This week, we'll look at the first of these tools: The incident management plan.

The Incident Management Plan

This document, also known as a Crisis Management Plan or Crisis Communication Plan, explains in detail every step to take in case of an accident or incident. At a minimum, your plan should include:

Emergency response: Your plan must explain exactly how employees will get an ambulance or other emergency responder to the site. The planner needs to consider if specialty services will be needed, such as:

• High-angle rescue capabilities
• Evacuation of injured via air
• Search and rescue.

If employees are working in remote locations, your plan should also identify what form of communication will be used if cell phones or hand-held radios are rendered useless.

Roles and responsibilities: An Incident Management Plan must list the names and positions of each individual responsible for each aspect of incident management. One of the first persons to identify is the person in charge at the scene, the one who initiates the plan and maintains order. Next, the persons providing support to the person in charge must be identified. This process can be referrd to as developing an incident management "chain of command."

Communication: It is important to clearly assign the tasks of communication. In your document, outline exactly how, when, why, to whom and by whom information is communicated. Some questions to ask when developing this part of the plan are:

• Will someone be a liaison with the emergency response groups?
• How will key personnel, including the communications team and management, be notified?
• Who will communicate with the family of affected employees, should that be necessary?
• How will union officials be notified?
• Who will communicate with the media? Who will write prepared statements?
• How will internal employees be informed of the incident? Will regular updates be given? How? By whom?
• If necessary, how and when will government agencies, such as OSHA, EPA, DOT and MSHA, be notified?

Security: You must secure and preserve the site during and after incidents. List the steps necessary to do this. Specify for how long the site should be preserved. Determine if an entrance/exit log of persons on the scene will be needed. You may also need to include some process for removing items from the scene, which may be used as evidence. This process or chain-of-custody documentation could be crucial to ensuring all evidence is gathered and not lost.

Counseling services: In the event of a major accident, it is likely that employees will need to speak to a counselor. List what counseling service will be available and when and how they'll be contacted. You should also consider when these counseling services will be available, for example, 24 hours a day or during work hours only.

Conclusion

Next week, we'll discuss the second tool of incident response: The accident investigation plan.

POP QUIZ

Conference Room Germ Warfare

Place these six common workplace surfaces found in the conference room in the order of least contaminated surface to the most contaminated surface:

• Phone mouthpiece
• Desktop
• Chair armrest
• Computer mouse
• Doorknob
• Light switch

Answer:

#6 Light switch
#5 Doorknob
#4 Desktop
#3 Phone mouthpiece
#2 Computer mouse
#1 Chair armrest

Contaminated surfaces are not the same throughout the workplace, though. In an office, the most contaminated workplace surface is the phone mouthpiece and in a cubicle it's the light switch.

Source: Research report titled: Heterotrophic Bacterial levels on Common Workplace Surface, Conducted by S.A. Boone, K.R. Bright, and C.P. Gerba of The University of Arizona.

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