Near Miss Program

I was working this weekend teaching hazmat.  Talking with another instructor, who is a career firefighter, about workplace injuries.  Some occupations are inherently risky.  Some require employees to take "calculated" risks inorder to save anothers life.  During the risk evaluation, we try to evaluate all hazards and come up with a plan to acheive our goal.  Sometimes this is formal, sometimes informal.  When someone gets injuried during this task, then people sit down to make sure that it doesn't happen a gain.  Which is great, but what about the tasks that almost lead to an injury or a Near Miss.  If we spend some time looking at the almost injuries, we can reduce our actual injuries.  For firefighers, a national reporting system exists, but not many know about it or use it.  Here is a link.  http://www.firefighternearmiss.com/

Every sector of business can benifit from a near miss reporting program, wether internal or external.