Does your company have separate definitions for Serious Injury or Fatality (SIF) potential and high potential incident (HPI)? If so, what are they, and how do they differ?
• We don’t separate these. We focus on measuring injury potential; however we also classify potential severity of events broken down between cost/environmental/regulatory/security/production impacts but don’t identify them as HIPO.
• We discuss incidents within the framework internally, but we have not changed our systems to record incidents per these guidelines.
• We use HIPO (High Potential Incident). It mostly refers to injury potential but has also included significant property damage, production loss or environmental impact.
Along with this reporting structure, all mines are required to complete a Taproot (formal and in depth investigation tool) investigation for all HIPO, reportable incidents (medical aid, modified duty or lost time), and all ULSR’s (Uncompromised Life Safety Rules) violations.
We do not have a separate term or policy for SIF.
• We do not use either one so we do not have a definition for either
• We use the term “HPI” when dealing with next level incidents against our risk matrix.
'HPI- High potential incident' includes that which could have caused a serious adverse effect on safety and health if in usual circumstances a person could have been in the vicinity at the time.
I see that our clients’ sites uses SIF/ SIFP terminology when dealing with serious incidents. Another client uses another terminology lined up with classification standards of PH-potential hurt level.
• Our current definitions are as follows: SIF - Serious Injury and Fatality
Fatality – The death of a worker resulting from a work related injury.
Serious Injury - A life threatening or life altering injury.
Life-threatening Injury: Work-related injury that required immediate life[1]preserving rescue action, and if not applied immediately would likely have resulted in the death of that person (i.e., laceration or crushing injuries that results in significant blood loss, an injury involving damage to the brain or spinal cord, an injury which requires CPR or external defibrillator, etc.)
Life-altering Injury: Work-related injury that resulted in a permanent and significant loss of a major body part or organ function that permanently changes or disables that person’s normal life activity. (i.e., significant head injuries, spinal cord injuries, paralysis, amputations, broken or fracture bones, etc.)
In past, we approached SIF as an ‘umbrella’ term for high consequence events as it pertains to health and safety impacts.
Recently, we have begun to explore “Major Incident Hazards” (aka high consequence incidents) as a classification category, which encompasses health and safety impacts, but also expands to look at matters broader than simply health and safety. This aligns with industry trends, and recent research/literature as an approach towards SIF vs high consequence incidents.
• Poll on LinkedIn asking Does your company have separate definitions for Serious Injury Fatality (SIF) potential and high potential incident (HPI)? Response was 50% no and 50% Yes. No further information provided.