Organizational accidents are common, contributing to over 4500 deaths of workers per annum. The frequency of organizational accidents forced the United States' Ministry of Labor to create the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). OSHA guarantees a healthy and safe working environment for workers by presenting and implementing principles that align with safety as well as offering training, education, and assistant in instances of such accidents (US Department of Labor). These organizational accidents are as a result of various factors within the workplace organizational processes and conditions that influence errors. OSHA’s accident 837914 is an example of an organizational accident caused by organizational processes leading to errors in the organization's administration.
Various factors play a role in organizational accidents; although, many accidents are as a result of a combination of the factors. The factors that play a role in cases like the accident 837914 presented are human factors such as errors, mistakes, and violations. Errors are the unintentional happenings that occur in the process of working such as forgetfulness. Mistakes are misjudgments made in the process of duty causing accidents while violations are intentional errors made in the work process (Bard, 2013). The case above is an instance of accidents caused by unintentional errors by workers. It is also a combination of errors by different personnel in the work process. The worker who mislabeled the tanks, the supplier who failed to check the tanks and the nurse who did not counter check the tank before connecting the tank to the patients.
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Certain conditions can lead to errors, violations, and mistakes in the workplace such as incompetency in systems, lack of resources and training, workloads that cause fatigue to workers making them unable to carry out their duties, negligence among others efficiently. Such conditions create inefficiencies in the organizational process that result in organizational accidents. Small errors committed by high-end professionals may lead to serious consequences (Bard, 2013). In this case, the supplier delivered excess tanks and one tank was labeled twice and the nurse did not check the tank to identify the error which would have prevented the accidents.
In this case, several breaches of defenses and safeguards that were broken caused the death of four patients. The mistake of one worker in the organizational process of the nursing home led to errors by other employees in the process resulting in the accidents. This means that breaches of defenses and safeguard lead to accidents which are sometimes fatal. There is, therefore, the need to adhere strictly to safeguard measure to avoid such cases. The nursing homes learned the need to counter check supplies and ensure they are correctly labeled. They also leaned the need to consult and seek clarification in case where there seems to a technicality error before proceeding with treatment.
References
Bard, L. (2013). Human factors influencing workplace safety. Hazmat Management . Retrieved on 15 June 2017 from http://www.hazmatmag.com/features/human-factors-influencing-workplace-safety/.
US Department of Labor. Occupational safety and health administration . Retrieved on 15 June 2017 from https://www.osha.gov/.
