18 Jun Incident Definitions
We have had some queries as to clarification of some of the wording in “Incidents” – in particular, in the Accident/Harm/Illness section.
Wording was originally taken from a combination of WorkSafe and the Australian equivalent’s terminology – the Hasmate program wording may change in the near future.
Click on one of these headings to view the definition:
To clarify:
Agency (general)
Something that was involved or happened to produce a particular result.
These could be:
- Mechanical factors
- Structural factors
- Machinery factors
- Process factors
- Biological factors
- Environmental factors
- Electrical energy
- Water energy
- Hydraulic factors
- Animal factors
- Physical factors
- Chemical factors
- Ergonomic factors
- Psychological factors, etc.
E.g. a cause could be uneven ground.
Mechanism (more specific)
The process, system or thing that caused the incident to happen.
This could be a:
- Mechanical failure
- Power input failure
- Building collapse
- Animal attack
- Contaminated products or fluids
- Poor housekeeping (e.g. leads or materials left on the walking area)
- Fluids
- Human factors, etc.
E.g. the effect could be tripping.
Injury Category
This describes the criticality of the incident.
The incident category should be either LTI (lost time incident), notifiable incident, notifiable injury and illness, serious infection, death – or similar wording/categories.
Injury Nature
As described on the WorkSafe NZ notifiable event form – view here.
This could be a:
- Amputation of any body part
- Bruising
- Crushing
- Cut to head or body parts
- Death
- Eye injury
- Injury or illness that requires (or would usually require) immediate hospital admittance
- Injury or illness that requires (or would usually require) medical treatment within 48 hours of exposure to a substance
- Loss of bodily functions
- Minor abrasion
- Other injury or illness declared notifiable by regulations
- Separation of skin from underlying tissue (scalping or degloving)
- Serious burn
- Serious eye injury
- Serious head injury
- Serious infection (including occupational zoonosis)
- Serious lacerations – an incident that requires stitches (e.g. cut tendons, ligament, nerves)
- Small cut/s
- Spinal injury
- Strains and sprains
Injury Treatment
The treatment carried out at the time of the incident and/or provided from an external provider
The injury treatment should be either doctor only, first aid, hospital emergency, hospitalization, none – or similar wording/categories.