High-hazard Industries Research Articles

Explicit and Implicit Trust Within Safety Culture

Safety culture is an important topic for managers in high-hazard industries because a deficient safety culture has been linked to organizational accidents. Many researchers have argued that trust plays a central role in models of safety culture but trust has rarely been measured in safety culture/climate studies. This article used explicit (direct) and implicit (indirect) measures to assess trust at a UK gas plant. Explicit measures assessed trust by asking workers to consider and state their attitude to attitude objects. Implicit measures assessed trust in a more subtle way by using a priming task that relies on automatic attitude activation. The results show that workers expressed explicit trust for their workmates, supervisors, and senior managers, but only expressed implicit trust for their workmates. The article proposes a model that conceptualizes explicit trust as part of the surface levels of safety culture and implicit trust as part of the deeper levels of safety culture. An unintended finding was the positive relationship between implicit measures of trust and distrust, which suggests that trust and distrust are separate constructs. The article concludes by considering the implications for safety culture and trust and distrust in high-hazard industries.

Simulation technology in training students, residents and faculty

We provide an overview of the developments in medical education and assessment using high-fidelity simulation. Both descriptive and research papers recently published in the English language are included in this review. The majority of articles reviewed are descriptive in nature, outlining the use of simulation for various educational purposes in undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing medical education. Some articles focus on the use of simulation for the acquisition of technical skills in different surgical disciplines using part-task simulation. Other disciplines such as emergency medicine, critical care, paediatrics and nursing have also contributed to the literature in this area. Very little research in the area of simulation is evident in the literature addressing the actual value or the reliability and validity of high-fidelity simulation as an evaluation tool during this time period. A strong interest in decreasing human error and the improvement in patient safety may indicate the future direction of high-fidelity simulation. Simulation is receiving increasing support as an educational tool and in its use for evaluation purposes. Research into this area is still somewhat limited. As the research impetus increases in the future, we may see simulation as a major focus in all disciplines with respect to its use in the improvement of patient safety. Team training, including both personality and attitudinal issues similar to those performed in other high hazard industries, may become increasingly evident in the literature in the coming decade.

Are simulation and didactic crisis resource management (CRM) training synergistic?

Simulation may have an additive component to classroom style training, at least in the short term Full environment simulation is achieving wide adoption despite weak evidence of its impact on outcome. It is doing so because it has strong face validity, creates much enthusiasm from both students and teachers, and because it is what other high hazard industries do to mitigate errors and to create and maintain a culture of safety. Yet most of us working with simulation technologies and techniques generally try to maintain our objectivity. We ask ourselves if it really does what we think it does, how much fidelity is needed to achieve our educational goals, and how we weigh the costs and benefits. When we are using it for non-technical training such as improving teamwork, we want to understand how it should be used to meet the real objective—creating real lasting behavior and culture changes that will make health care more effective and safer. The paper in this issue of QSHC by Shapiro and colleagues1 demonstrates a model for using …

A Fragmented Patient Safety Concept: The Structure and Culture of Safety Management in Healthcare

Safety in healthcare organizations is often an ownerless process with responsibility falling under a myriad of departments that individually are coordinating initiatives to improve aspects of safety. In contrast, other high-hazard industries seek to institutionalize safety management as a key characteristic of organizational culture. Healthcare seeks to model its approach to patient safety on other high-hazard industry models, but without an understanding of the impact of creating a uniform approach to safety management, healthcare organizations will not implement a similar organization-wide safety culture.

Problem Investigation in High-Hazard Industries: Creating and Negotiational Learning

High-hazard or high-reliability organizations are ideal for the study of organizational learning processes because of their intense mindfulness regarding problems. We examine 27 problem investigation teams at 3 nuclear power plants whose task was to report to management about causes and corrective actions and thereby contribute to organizational learning and change. Questionnaires were given to team members and manager recipients of the team reports, and team reports were coded regarding their analyses and recommendations. Our results showed variable depth and creativity in the reports, with better reports associated with more team training and experience, and more diversity of work experience. Ratings of report quality, individual learning, and plant changes by team members and managers suggested that reports were only partially effective as boundary objects to reach shared understanding and negotiate action plans. Team members rated their reports more favorably when they had better access to information and found generic lessons for the plant and failed barriers that could have prevented problems. Managers rated reports more favorably when the teams had more investigation experience, better access to information, and stronger corrective actions.

Organizational Learning from Experience in High-Hazard Industries: Problem Investigations as Off-line Reflective Practice

Learning from experience, the cyclical interplay of thinking and doing, is increasingly important as organizations struggle to cope with rapidly changing environments and more complex and interdependent sets of knowledge. This paper confronts two central issues for organizational learning: (1) how is local learning (by individuals or small groups) integrated into collective learning by organizations? and (2) what are the differences between learning practices that focus on control, elimination of surprises, and single-loop incremental fixing of problems with those that focus on deep or radical learning, double-loop challenging of assumptions, and discovery of new opportunities? We articulate these relationships through an analysis of particular learning practices in highhazard organizations, specifically, problem investigation teams that examine the most serious and troubling events and trends in nuclear power plants and chemical plants. We first distinguish a controlling orientation from a rethinking orientation, and illustrate learning practices with three case studies from the nuclear power and chemical industries and a questionnaire study of three nuclear power plants. We then extend our framework to create a four-stage model of organizational learning: (1) local learning by decentralized individuals and work groups, (2) constrained learning in a context of compliance with rules, (3) open learning prompted by acknowledgement of doubt and desire to learn, and (4) deep learning based on skillful inquiry and systemic mental models. These four stages contrast whether learning is primarily single-loop or double-loop, i.e., whether the organization can surface and challenge the assumptions and mental models underlying behavior, and whether learning is relatively improvised or structured. We conclude with a discussion of the stages, levels of learning (team, organizational, and individual), and the role of action, thinking, and emotion in organizational learning.

Structural and Organizational Issues in Patient Safety: A Comparison of Health Care to other High-Hazard Industries

A recent report from the Institute of Medicine has focused attention anew on the incidence of medical errors in the health care industry. While there is a relatively large body of research on how organizations can operate in a highly reliable manner, and thus avoid such errors, little of that work has been done in the health care field. This article discusses the ways in which the health care industry has failed to meet systematically the standards for achieving high reliability, based in part on two existing theories about the management of high-hazard environments-High Reliability Organization Theory (HROT) and Normal Accidents Theory (NAT).

Using Collaborative Information Technology Learning More about Saftety-Critical Events

Common accident and near miss analysis systems (ANMAS) often fails to transfer safety-related knowledge, which match to the demands of technicians in operating, maintaining and designing technical components in high hazard industries. This paper emphasis on problem solving processes in safety-critical event analysis teams, which are identified as key units for the transfer and storage of implicit knowledge in ANMAS. Computer-mediated communication is evaluated in terms of considered event information, the quantity of identified causal relations and learning gains through the analysis. Results indicate a acceleration in collecting information and a suppression of the learning success in computer-mediated event analysis teams. No significant differences were found between FTF and CMC were found for the conceptualization of causes and contributing factors. Results are discussed according to current issues of computer-supported ANMAS.

Survey of Risk Reduction and Pollution Prevention Practices in the Rhode Island Automotive Refinishing Industry

In 1996 a survey of pollution prevention, environmental control, and occupational health and safety practices was conducted in the Rhode Island automotive refinishing industry sector. In conjunction with project partners, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management developed a multidimensional survey instrument to identify risk reduction opportunities. Investigators sought to characterize the range of environmental and industrial hygiene controls employed by Rhode Island facilities for the purposes of focusing state technical and compliance assistance efforts. Data were collected on a diverse range of subject areas including work force demographics; source reduction; potential health hazards; worker protection and safety; solid and hazardous waste management; and air pollution control. Nearly one-half of the shops employ three or fewer people, and in many cases, spray painters double as body repair technicians thereby increasing their potential exposure to workplace contaminants. While nearly all of the shops reported that they use spray painting booths, only 38% own booths of the more effective downdraft design. Based on the self-reported data, recently promulgated state air pollution control regulations (requiring the use of compliant coatings, enclosed or modified spray gun cleaners, and high-volume, low-pressure, spray guns) appear to be effective at motivating companies toward source reduction. A range of risk reduction opportunities were identified as input material changes, technology changes, and improved operating practices. Better methods of risk communication; a professional licensing requirement; and targeted training, compliance, and technical assistance would help to achieve greater levels of risk reduction in this mature, high-hazard industry.

Survey of risk reduction and pollution prevention practices in the Rhode Island automotive refinishing industry.

In 1996 a survey of pollution prevention, environmental control, and occupational health and safety practices was conducted in the Rhode Island automotive refinishing industry sector. In conjunction with project partners, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management developed a multidimensional survey instrument to identify risk reduction opportunities. Investigators sought to characterize the range of environmental and industrial hygiene control employed by Rhode Island facilities for the purposes of focusing state technical and compliance assistance efforts. Data were collected on a diverse range of subject areas including work force demographics; source reduction; potential health hazards; worker protection and safety; solid and hazardous waste management; and air pollution control. Nearly one-half of the shops employ three or fewer people, and in many cases, spray painters double as body repair technicians thereby increasing their potential exposure to workplace contaminants. While nearly all of the shops reported that they use spray painting booths, only 38% own booths the more effective downdraft design. Based on the self-reported data, recently promulgated state air pollution control regulations (requiring the use of compliant coatings, enclosed or modified spray gun cleaners, and high-volume, low-pressure, spray guns) appear to be effective at motivating companies toward source reduction. A range of risk reduction opportunities were identified as input material changes, technology changes, and improved operating practices. Better methods of risk communication; a professional licensing requirement; and targeted training, compliance, and technical assistance would help to achieve greater levels of risk reduction in this mature, high-hazard industry.

Incident Reviews in High-Hazard Industries: Sense Making and Learning Under Ambiguity and Accountability

Learning from practical experience is of greater importance in more complex work environments. In high-hazard industries, complexity, tight coupling, and invisibility make safe operation and learning from experience particularly difficult. There is growing recognition that further improvement is needed and that it will require more than incremental improvement and exchange of "best practices." This arti cle describes how organization members make sense of practical expe rience in one high-hazard industry—nuclear power—and how their sense-making affects their decisions and actions. The author discusses four factors that can limit the effectiveness of the interpretive process: root cause seduction, sharp-end focus, solution-driven search, and account acceptability. He then examines the impact that myopic inter pretations can have on operating performance by placing incident reviews within the organizational learning process, and he closes with suggestions for a cross-disciplinary research agenda.

The Organizational Context for Decision Making in High-Hazard Industries

The study of decision making in high-hazard industries has recently shifted from the traditional focus on control room operators to other actors in the sociotechnical system, including designers and management. I discuss the importance of hierarchy and specialization in organizational decision making, drawing on research in organizational psychology, sociology, and related disciplines.

The impact of shiftwork on personnel at a nuclear power plant: An exploratory survey study

Abstract Shiftwork may constitute an additional risk factor in high-hazard industries where system failure could exact heavy human, environmental and economic costs. This exploratory survey study examined the impact of shiftwork upon nuclear power plant workers' perceived health, sleep, and social problem, as well as levels of alertness. Overall, the night shik proved to be the most problematic in ternis of decreases in alertness, sleep duration and quality, and disruptions to health, social and family life. The permanent shift preferences of the shiftworkers were also explored to establish the practicability of introducing a theoretically safer permanent mght shdt at such a facility. Importantly, the small proportion of the sample who showed a preference for a pemianent night shift was insufficient to provide operational cover. Although these shtftworkers reported experiencing less disruption on the night shift than those who would choose to work a permanent day shift, their preference appeared to be bas...

Solid particle erosion of brittle materials (Part 2): The relation between erosive wear and α- or β-phase content of hot pressed Si 3N 4

The construction industry is a high hazard industry. Accidents frequently occur, and part of them are closely relate to workers who are not certified to carry out specific work. Although workers without a trade certificate are restricted entry to construction sites, few ad-hoc approaches have been commonly employed to check if a worker is carrying out the work for which they are certificated. This paper proposes a novel framework to check whether a site worker is working within the constraints of their certification. Our framework comprises key video clips extraction, trade recognition and worker competency evaluation. Trade recognition is a new proposed method through analyzing the dynamic spatiotemporal relevance between workers and non-worker objects. We also improved the identification results by analyzing, comparing, and matching multiple face images of each worker obtained from videos. The experimental results demonstrate the reliability and accuracy of our deep learning-based method to detect workers who are carrying out work for which they are not certified to facilitate safety inspection and supervision.