Page 28 - OHS, March 2021

FALL PROTECTION
Five Reasons to Incorporate Connected Safety
into Your Fall Protection Program
Incorporating connected safety into your fall protection program will further increase the chances of workers making it through their shifts safely.
BY BRENDON COOK
From oil & gas and petrochemical to engineering and construction, working at heights is common practice, and fall protection is
an absolute necessity. When a worker is alone, the risk of this type of work is amplified and an accident can turn fatal, making it critical to identify and respond to a serious fall as soon as possible. While fall protection equipment is critical to preventing these types of accidents, many companies rely on inefficient and ineffective lone worker procedures such as spot checks and radio calls. Working as teams may provide some false confidence in early detection and response to a fall, as
a crew can split up to either perform work in other locations or to retrieve tools and materials.
Adopting connected safety technology can play a pivotal role in protecting employees from the outcome of not proactively detecting a fall and the exposure risk to a worker who does not receive immediate assistance.
Connected Safety
Before we dive into the benefits of taking a connected approach to fall protection, it’s helpful to provide a quick introduction to connected safety.
Connectivity has changed nearly
every aspect of our lives—both personal and professional. Technology like smartphones, wellness trackers and networked smart homes have made instant awareness an expectation. Just as connectivity has disrupted industries like retail, travel and banking, it is changing the way we shape EHS programs and how we keep workers safe in traditionally less- responsive, highly regulated industries.
Innovation over the last several years has led to cloud-connected wearable technology that brings together previously disparate devices and processes to support a more comprehensive, holistic approach to worker safety. Through the leveraging of 4G connectivity, many of these devices enable wireless communication, location technology and automatically detect safety and health incidents. When automatically streamed to the cloud, these insights can be used to gain the real-time situational awareness needed to make quick and informed decisions, as well as increase the odds of a rescue versus a recovery during an emergency.
When it comes to fall protection, connected safety plays a critical role in detecting when an employee has experienced an accident, responding in real-time to the incident and gathering key learnings to prevent similar safety incidents in the future. Here are five key benefits of supplementing a fall protection program with a connected safety solution that makes the transition to a connected workforce an easy decision.
Fall Detection Technology
Worksites are busy places that require a balance of effort and quality with staying safe. Fall protection PPE is a crucial component of an overall program for working at heights, and it supports workers who lose their footing when something shifts, causing them to lose balance. Risk increases when working alone, as the incident may go unnoticed for an extended
24 Occupational Health & Safety | MARCH 2021
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