New Forms

Highlights of the Changes

What is Recordable?

What is Medical Treatment?

What is NOT Medical Treatment?

What is First Aid?

Earlier this year, in an effort to streamline current recordkeeping requirements, OSHA announced its revised Work Illness/Injury Recordkeeping Regulations. The final rule becomes effective January 1, 2002, when use of the new OSHA forms 300, 300A, and 301 becomes mandatory. The new rule will not lessen an employer’s recordkeeping responsibilities, but should make successful compliance easier. The revision is also designed to improve employee involvement, institute simpler forms, provide clearer regulatory requirements, and allow employers more flexibility for using computers to meet OSHA recordkeeping requirements. During the transition period, employers are to continue complying with the original rule using existing forms.

This article highlights changes in the rule only. Administrators and physicians are encouraged to review the new rule in its entirety. More information can be obtained by contacting Bill Wright at 202.693.1999, viewing the new rule and related documents at www.osha.gov, or contacting your regional OSHA office and asking for the Recordkeeping Coordinator.

All of the existing forms have been updated. New forms go into effect January 1, 2002. The forms and their names are listed below.

Highlights of the Changes

Records
Records must include any work-related injury/illness involving one of the following:

• death
• calendar days away from work
• restricted work or transfer to another job
• medical treatment beyond first aid
• loss of consciousness
• diagnosis of a significant injury/illness by a licensed physician or other health practitioner

Criteria
Eliminates different criteria for recording work-related injuries/illnesses; one set of criteria will now be used for both.

Basic Definitions
Includes new definitions of medical treatment, first aid, and restricted work to simplify recording decisions.

Pre-Existing Conditions
Requires a significant degree of aggravation before a preexisting injury or illness becomes recordable.

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Needlestick/Sharps
Requires the recording of all contaminated needlestick and sharps injuries. Recording of these injuries must comply with the new Needlestick Act, which became effective April 18th of this year.

MSDs
Applies the same recording criteria to musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) as to all other injuries or illnesses. The employer retains the flexibility to determine whether work contributed to the MSD.

Hearing Loss and Other Illnesses
Requires the recording of illnesses, including any hearing loss/standard threshold shift (STS), MSDs, poisonings, skin disorders, and respiratory conditions in a separate column from injuries.

TB
Includes separate provisions for recording cases involving work-related transmission of tuberculosis or medical
removal.

Lost Workdays
Eliminates the term "lost workdays" and focuses on days away or days restricted or transferred. Also includes new rules for counting that rely on calendar days instead of workdays. The calculations commence on the day following the injury. Counting may stop at 180 days.

Restricted Work
Restricted work is now defined as when the employer or healthcare professional keeps the employee from performing normal functions of his/her job or from working a full day.

Employee Privacy
For certain illness/injuries the employee name cannot be entered on the OSHA 300 Log Form: injury/illness to intimate or reproductive body part, sexual assaults, HIV, TB, hepatitis infections, mental illness, needlesticks/sharps, or the employee specifically requests that his or her name not be recorded on the log. The words "Privacy Case" should be entered where the worker’s name would go.

Provides employers the right not to describe the nature of sensitive injuries where the employee’s identity would be known.

Employee representatives can now have access to Form 301, which contains no personal identifiers.

Employers are required to remove employee names before providing data to persons not provided access rights under the rule.

Fatalities
Changes the reporting of fatalities/catastrophes to exclude some motor carrier and vehicle accidents.

Worker Instruction
Employers are now required to have established procedures for employees to report injuries and illness and to provide instruction to their workers on how to report such occurrences.

Posting of Summary
Posting of annual summaries has been extended from one month to three. A company executive must certify all posted summaries.

Retention of Records
The OSHA Log and Summary must be kept for five years following the year to which they pertain. 

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 What is Recordable?

You must record every work-related injury or illness involving:

• Fatality
• Loss of consciousness
• Restricted work activity
• Job transfer
• Working less than a full day
• Days away from work
• Medical treatment beyond first aid

What is Medical Treatment?

• Medical treatment includes managing and caring for a patient for the purpose of combating disease or disorder

What is NOT Medical Treatment?

The following are not considered medical treatment and are not recordable:

• Visits to a doctor or healthcare professional for observation or counseling
• Diagnostic procedures including administering prescription medications that are solely for
  diagnostic purposes
• Any procedure that can be labeled first aid

What is First Aid?

Incidents that require the following treatments are considered first aid and are not recordable:

• Use of non-prescription medications at non-prescription strength
• Administration of tetanus immunizations
• Cleaning, flushing, or soaking wounds on the skin surface
• Use of wound coverings, e.g., gauze pads, BandAids™, or SteriStrips™
• Use of hot or cold therapy
• Use of eye patches
• Use of any non-rigid means of support, e.g., wraps
• Drinking of fluids to relieve heat stress
• Use of temporary immobilization devices while transporting an accident victim, e.g., splints, neck collars, or backboards
• Drilling of fingernails or toenails to relieve pressure, or draining fluids from blisters
• Use of simple irrigation or cotton swab to remove foreign bodies not embedded in or adhered to
  the eye
• Use of irrigation, tweezers, cotton swab, or other simple means to remove splinters or foreign material from areas other than the eye
• Use of finger guards
• Using massages

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