Have you ever wondered how to approach an incident investigation to give yourself the best chance of preventing not just the same, but similar incidents from happening? SafeStart consultant Tim Page-Bottorff recently addressed that exact issue in Safety+Health Magazine.

Tim notes that safety professionals are often proficient in observing similar actions that may result in an incident, which could point to a problem in the hierarchy of controls, as well as identifying when an engineering solution may be required.

However, engineering solutions will only help to prevent the exact incident from occurring again (e.g. installing a guardrail within a facility). It would be a better long-term solution to implement regular human factors training to improve safety both on and off the job, and to prevent a wider range of incidents.

Ideally, Tim concludes, your investigation should make note of both potential engineering and human factors solutions to ensure you’re covering all the major areas of injury prevention.

Learn more in our free on-demand webinars about how human factors training can improve safety skills and reduce injuries. You can also download Tim’s safety articles and learn more about his conference presentations, including his popular Humor in Safety session.