Under a requirement that took effect Jan. 1, 2015, employers must report to OSHA within 24 hours any work-related amputation, in-patient hospitalization, or loss of eye. (The requirement to report a fatality within 8 hours was unchanged.) Injuries may be reported directly to an OSHA field office, to the OSHA toll-free number, or via an online form; details are available at www.osha.gov/report.html. In the FIRST FULL YEAR of the reporting program, employers notified OSHA of 10,388 incidents involving severe work-related injuries, including 7,636 hospitalizations and 2,644 amputations. The reports were from federal OSHA states ONLY and do NOT include injuries from states that administer their own safety and health programs. These federal ONLY numbers amount to 30 work-related severe injuries a day — evidence that, despite decades of progress, many U.S. worksites remain hazardous to workers.
For a breakdown of hospitalization and amputation reports by industry…
The 25 industry groups reporting the largest number of severe injuries can be found in Table One.
A complete list of injury reports by industry is available at www.osha.gov/injuryreports/2015_by_industry.pdf.
OSHA responded to about a third of all injury reports, and 58% of amputation reports, with an inspection by a compliance officer after determining that the hazardous conditions described warranted one.
OSHA believes that many severe injuries — perhaps 50% or more — are not being reported. We base this conclusion on several factors, including injury claim numbers provided to us by state workers’ compensation programs. Because the majority of first-year reports were filed by large employers, we believe that many small and mid-sized employers are unaware of the new requirements. For them, we are developing outreach strategies, including working through insurers, first responders, and business organizations.
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