Accident investigation is critical to managing existing claims and avoiding future claims.

Effective workplace accident investigation will provide you with the information necessary to give accurate information to insurance claims adjusters and OSHA inspectors. It will also help identify the root cause of the incident and any trends that may be occurring in your workplace.

Take lots of pictures of any serious incidents; they will be very useful in your analysis.

One of your senior management team together with a member of the safety committee should evaluate incidents which have resulted in damage to property or injury to people. We investigate property damage because the same types of events could very easily result in injury to personnel.

The safety committee should evaluate all investigations in their safety committee meetings in order to identify trends and root causes.

This discussion is limited to the accident / incident investigation that takes place after the emergency has been dealt with. We will address emergency response as a standalone topic.

When you evaluate an incident it is good to have some kind of format to help guide the process. The format that we provide here addresses each of these main topics:

-Equipment involved

-Employee involvement

-Environmental factors

Search for "Root Cause" above and you will find at least 6 books covering this topic for you.