Page 77 - Occupational Health & Safety, June 2018

tory having a certificate of accreditation meeting the requirements in ISO/IEC 17025:2017, General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories.
Unlike EN 388, which specifies a pass or fail for impact, the de- fined ISEA 138 levels will give greater choice and flexibility to the end-user. Having a scale of performance levels help them make a choice that meet the needs of their workforce, giving them the con- fidence to choose protective gloves that are appropriate to the level of hazard or risk they encounter.
The standard will provide a reliable starting point to which end- users can then apply all the variables affecting their specific work- force, tasks, working environments, and budgets.
tecting workers because it reflects the reality of how end-users re- ally experience workplace injuries.
Because the working group was keen to ensure the final stan- dard was accurately aimed at reducing the most common impact injuries at work, it brought in Dr. Lloyd Champagne, a surgeon based in Phoenix who focuses on plastic and reconstructive hand surgery. His role was to advise on the real-life injuries he sees in hand trauma practice. Those statistics, combined with the exper- tise and experience that Dr. Champagne was able to bring to the table, means we now have a proposed standard that uses real evi- dence to identify and protect against the most common risks.
Next Steps
The draft standard is still working its way through the develop- ment process, which will include a final vote by an external group of industry stakeholders. If the next steps stay on schedule, the standard will be published by ANSI by the end of 2018. Once this happens, it will be up to the industry to inform and educate end- users about what it means, how to differentiate between different products and levels of protection, and how it will help improve workplace protection.
Rodney Taylor, MS, MBA, is global sales and marketing manager for industrial PPE at D3O, LLC, a company that provides innovative impact protection solutions for sport, motorcycle safety, military/law enforcement, electronics protection, and industrial safety.
Preventing Real-Life Injuries
The oil and gas sector, which is a large user of impact protection gloves, has collected figures through the International Association of Drilling Contractors showing that in 2016, the fingers remained the most vulnerable part of the body in terms of both lost time and recordable injuries. Injuries to fingers accounted for one-third of all total recordable injuries and almost 20 per cent of lost-time inju- ries. Meanwhile, the hand/wrists accounted for around 11 percent and 10 percent, respectively.
Currently, EN 388 covers only the knuckles, but the new ISEA 138 standard will include knuckles and fingers, which is critical for industrial glove users where the fingers are frequently at risk.
Testing multiple places on the fingers is crucial to properly pro-
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