Page 22 - Occupational Health & Safety, July/August 2019

LOCKOUT/TAGOUT
ment and hardware
■ Employee training/retraining program for Authorized and
Affected personnel
■ Contractor participation in energy-control practices
■ Annual inspections of the use of the procedures to verify,
maintain, or improve their effectiveness
2. Create machine-specific, visually instructive LOTO procedures.
In addition to an overview guide of your lockout/tagout program standards, it is important to provide equipment-specific visual docu- ments outlining the procedural steps to shut down equipment safely to a zero-energy state. For this type of instruction, a visual approach is best, one where you clearly show the equipment to be worked on with step-by-step instructions as to what must be secured and done to prepare for shutdown and isolation of hazardous energy.
3. Training and retraining. In addition to being equipped with a lockout program and equipment-specific procedures, your em- ployees must be trained so they understand the purpose and func- tion of your facility’s lockout program and the equipment to which they are exposed. The amount and type of training that each em- ployee receives should be based on the relationship that employee’s job has to the equipment being locked out and the degree of knowl- edge relevant to hazardous energy that employee needs to control.
4. Auditing and inspecting. To identify methods of improvement in process and changes or updates on equipment, health care facili- ties must conduct in-depth audits and inspections to determine ar- eas where hazardous energy is present and LOTO procedures need
to be implemented. This includes on-site examinations and analy- ses of the facilities and their applications for controlling hazardous energy sources during maintenance and repair operations.
The Business Case for Implementing
LOTO Procedures in Health Care Facilities
Many organizations view safety compliance as a cost center that works against profitability, but that’s a misguided belief. Return on Investment can be a powerful illustrator of the cause-and-effect na- ture of accident prevention.
Health care facilities can determine ROI by projecting what can be saved in the short term related to lost productivity due to disrup- tion of operations from a history of significant accidents, increased insurance expenses, public relations impacts, and the positive ben- efit of increased efficiencies due to improved safe work processes. Facilities can calculate cost savings by using the ROI formula: Net Profit ÷ Cost of Investment = Return on Investment (ROI).
Often, businesses find significant savings when going through this exercise, but other financial and operational benefits of imple- menting LOTO procedures include:
■ Operational efficiency. Identifying weak points and haz- ards throughout operations can affect the reliability of work being performed. Improvements increase productivity, leading to short- term gains that can turn into long-term, sustainable profitability. For example, making safety equipment readily available where lockout needs to be applied can increase productivity.
CORPORATE PROFILE
Board of Certified Safety Professionals
www.bcsp.org
8645 Guion Road Indianapolis, IN 46268
Tel: +1 317-593-4800
Contact Information Lisa Spencer
Sr. Director, Marketing
ABOUT BCSP
BCSP is recognized as a leader in high-quality credentialing for safety, health, and environmental practitioners (SH&E).
BCSP establishes standards for and verifies competency in profes- sional safety practice and evalu- ates certificants for compliance with recertification requirements.
All certifications are accredited or in the process of becoming accred- ited. BCSP maintains the highest accreditations for its certifications, proving their value through inde- pendent, third-party evaluations.
Since 1969, over 100,000 of BCSP’s certifications have been achieved. BCSP is a not-for-profit corporation with headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Circle 63 on card.
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