Canadian Occupational Safety

D elivering a 20,000-pound MRI scanner to a hospital can pose immense safety risks not only to the delivery crew, but also to hospital staff, visitors and patients. It can take fi ve or six people to roll the machines on pallets from a loading dock through various hallways into the installation room. "To get equipment into buildings, we have to take it apart, and sometimes the pieces are just too big for the corridors," says Ed Kling, Western Canada regional support engineer for nuclear medicine and radiopharmacy products at GE Healthcare. "This means they could crash into walls or people and possibly hurt someone." To address this, GE Healthcare's Canadian environmental health and safety teams have been instrumental in getting some equipment redesigned so it could be broken down into smaller pieces that are lighter, less cumbersome and safer to transport. They also had special tools developed that make handling the machinery easier and safer for the company's 570 Canadian workers. In 2015, a working alone app (NeverAlone) was launched for GE Healthcare to enhance the usability, fl exibility and productivity of the working alone proce- dure. This app is a great example of a project the joint health and safety committee and safety champions drove as a team — they planned, developed, tested and communicated the app. "Our employees work in remote areas, geographically and even in the hospital environment. We don't always have the ability to have two people on a job, but by having this app, it gives our employees the confi dence that someone is watching out for them," says Paul Desiri, GE Healthcare's director of environment health and safety at the company headquarters in Mississauga, Ont. Across the 130 countries where GE operates, workers bring best practices and improvements to corporate decision-makers through their EHS champions, who also conduct safety audits in their areas. "EHS is not a top-down driven program. It's at every layer of the organization and because of the EHS champions, it helps people know and understand the real actionable items they need to do in their specifi c roles," says Kling, who is a safety champion himself. "It also enables continuous two- way communications to keep people aware and current for their specifi c area of the business and provide real feedback." GE Healthcare has a large fl eet of motor vehicles and the majority of its employees drive on company business, so it has a robust motor vehicle safety program. All employees who drive more than 40,000 kilometers per year on company business or who have one moving violation or incident are required to complete practical hands-on driving refresher training. The requirement for training was validated by a review of the incident data (fault and no-fault) that found the potential for motor vehicle incidents is highest for employees who drive more than 40,000 km per year. Other initiatives that have been implemented include ongoing distracted driving campaigns, defensive driving reminders and driver ergonomic tips. According to Desiri, the numbers show the company's commitment to safety is working. Since 2006, GE Healthcare Canada has surpassed 10 million hours without a lost-time injury. Non lost-time injuries have also shown continuous improvement year over year. For example, six years ago, that rate was 1.2, but it is expected to be about 0.3 for 2016. "We see every near miss as a gift," he says. "It means that no one got hurt, presents an opportunity to learn and allows us to fi x a problem before someone does." 20 Canadian Occupational Safety www.cos-mag.com current for their specifi c area of the business and provide Calgary Laboratory Services Pronghorn Controls Canadian Blood Services Weatherford Canada Partnership HEALTH CARE OIL AND GAS W hen a helicopter transporting Suncor workers lands on the fl oating production facility in the Terra Nova oil fi eld, the offshore installation manager greets them upon arrival. "He reinforces to the crew their commitment to safety, what's happened in the last 21 days as far as safety and occupational incidents. He reinforces the behaviours that he expects and the culture that we are expected to exhibited," says Brent Miller, asset manager at the Terra Nova site, which is located about 350 kilometres southeast of St. John's, N.L. This type of meeting is very important because the company's 275 employees (and 112 contractors) need to undergo a psychological switch when they return offshore, as they have not been on site in three weeks. "That has had a tremendous impact on getting people in the right frame of mind," says Miller. A few years ago, Suncor – East Coast Canada noticed it was logging a lot of hand injuries. It upped its cut and impact resistance requirements and found new gloves for workers to test. Worker feedback was used to determine the gloves that were ultimately chosen. "It's a great example of collaboration with the workforce but it also promotes their personal ownership of the initiative and really people are taking pride in the fact that they infl uenced this decision," says Roger Crowley, team lead for environment and regulatory. The health and safety team used this opportunity to reinforce safe work practices, and 2015 saw a 50 per cent reduction in hand injuries. Recently, Suncor – East Coast Canada had a signifi cant rollout on risk tolerance to make sure workers understand their role in managing their decisions when faced with a hazard. "The rule of thumb for me is overreaction is better than under-reaction," says Miller. "I would much rather people not be too sure and stop the job, and that is the kind of thing we are asking people to do." A robust communication campaign outlined behaviours people take in their day-to-day activities — consciously or subconsciously — that affect their decision-making. Supervisors also conducted on-the- job conversations with their workers about risk. To accompany this, Suncor – East Coast Canada launched a mandatory fi eld-level risk assessment — performed by workers — for every permit issued. The company has also been communicating its "operational discipline behaviours" to all personnel, including dedicated training for front- line leaders. These behaviours set the expectations on how to work effectively and safely, and they include: seek knowledge and understanding; adhere to procedure; use a questioning attitude to surface problems; expect accountability; and collaboration. "We have seen many examples of situations where what may have been accepted as a regular practice and maybe a small deviation from a written procedure is being fl agged now to say, 'You know what, this is not the way it's written to do the job,'" says Crowley. "And if we need to revise a procedure to refl ect the ideal safest way to perform the job, we are taking the time to do that." East Coast Canada 2016

• Cover