In the final rule for Occupational Injury and Illness Recording and Reporting Requirements released on Sept. 11, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration tightened its reporting requirements for all employers covered by the Occupational Safety & Health Act. This revised rule, which will go into effect on Jan. 15, 2015, will require employers, whether exempt from maintaining injury and illness records or not, to notify OSHA of any work-related fatalities within eight hours, and any work-related in-patient hospitalizations, amputations or losses of an eye within 24 hours. In contrast, the prior standard only imposed the reporting of in-patient hospitalizations affecting three or more employees.
In addition to the phone reporting system already in existence, OSHA is currently developing a web portal for employers to submit incidents electronically.
Along with the new reporting requirements, OSHA issued an update to the list of industries that are exempt from routinely keeping and maintaining injury and illness records based on the North American Industry Classification System. The reporting exemption for any employer with 10 or fewer employees, regardless of their industry classification, remained intact in the final rule.
For more information on how these changes to the Occupational Injury and Illness Recording and Reporting Requirements might affect your business, contact any member of the Burns White Occupational Safety and Health team.