Risk Of Serious Accidents Research Articles

Accidents in materials handling at construction sites

The aim of this study is to examine those occupational accidents at construction sites that are related to materials handling as compared with all reportable occupational accidents at construction sites. The main concern is to define the kinds of accidents that occur in materials handling. The data were gathered from two sources: a large Finnish construction company and the database of reports of serious occupational accidents (Sammio). One third of all the reported accidents in the studied construction company occurred during materials transfer and 36% of the absenteeism days resulted from these accidents. Materials handling thus caused more serious accidents than other work activities (t = −2.44, df = 351, p < 0.005). Minor accidents were mostly due to over‐exertion whereas serious accidents were mostly falling from a height and injuries caused by falling and collapsing objects. The manual transfer of materials caused most of the materials transfer accidents in the company and mechanical transfer most of the serious materials handling accidents. Over‐exertion can, therefore, be decreased by reducing manual materials handling. On the other hand, replacing manual transfers with mechanical transfers means that there arises a risk of serious accidents.

注射薬適正使用のためのラベル発行システムの構築と評価

According to the guidelines of Japanese Society of Hospital Pharmacists, pharmacists should prepare medicine bags or labels for dispensing injectable medicines. However, it is not easy to establish a new system for printing these bags and labels quickly and efficiently all hospitals. At the moment many hospitals seem to let nurses write the information by hand directly on the transfusion bottles. This involved the risk of serious accidents due to miscommunication between pharmacists and nurses. Because we established a successful advanced system to achieve a maximum output with a minimum effort, its effectiveness is herein reported. We prepared labels using the data of our audit manual for the dispensing of injectable medicines. These labels included essential comments and information for both doctors and nurses. It takes 60-120 minutes to creating labels for 60 to 90 inpatients, while some additional time is needed to double check of the labels. As a result, this system has increased our workload by one and half times. In contrast to our increased workload, clear printed letters and useful comments and information has contributed to a decrease in the workload of the nurses in the ward. This cost effective, efficient system has received high acclaim from the staff members of other departments, and strongly confirms the role of pharmacists as risk managers. We now intend to further improve this system for proper dispensation of injectable medicines more properly and efficiently in the future.

Learning by accident? Reductions in the risk of unplanned outages in U.S. nuclear power plants after Three Mile Island

This study uses a Cox proportional hazards model to analyze changes in the risk of unplanned outages in U.S. nuclear power plants after the Three Mile Island (TMI) accident. The unplanned outage hazard is related to safety by the fact that most such outages begin with unplanned reactor scrams. These place extreme stresses on plant equipment, increasing the risk of serious accident. The estimates indicate that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)-led efforts to improve nuclear plant safety after TMI were followed by substantial reductions in the risk of unplanned outages.

Removal of Large Adrenal Tumor on the Right Side with Liver Mobilization

Twenty-one patients with large adrenal tumor on the right side were operated on at Yamagata University Hospital. Bilateral anterior subcostal incision with a vertical midline incision extending from the xiphoid and subsequent use of self-retraction system provided satisfactory exposure of anterior liver and diaphragma area. Successive retraction of the liver exposed the right adrenal tumor and its vascular pedicles. 14 (66.7%) of the 21 patients received right adrenalectomy with liver mobilization, and 7 (33.3%) received right adrenalectomy without mobilizing the liver. Despite the average weight of removed tumors was 152.9% (p < 0.01) greater in the liver mobilized group than in the liver nonmobilized group, the incidence of good exposure of right adrenal central vein including adjacent organs was higher in the former group. In addition, incidence of blood transfusion was identical in both groups. Although postoperative liver function was slightly impaired in the liver mobilized group as compared with the liver nonmobilized group, all examined valuables manifesting liver function in the former group returned to preoperative levels within 3 weeks. The operative procedure described above appears to be useful for the removal of right large adrenal tumors with less risk of serious accident.

Safety concerns at the local laboratory

Various groups within the American Chemical Society have been active in developing guidelines to reduce the risk of serious accident at the local level.