About EBSA14 - Course C. Incident and accident investigation and reporting - nuts and bolts

Instructors:
Jörg Frank, University of Zurich/CH
Martin Kuster, Novartis International AG, Basel/CH

Short description:
Target audience: Biosafety professionals tasked with setting up or running incident/accident evaluation systems
Training form: Case-study learning; interactive sharing of best practices and experiences, including lessons learned
Content/Abstract:
In a biosafety setting, accidents and incidents not being properly addressed and corrective action introduced can lead to consequences to the affected individual(s) or even the general public at large.

Participants of the training course will review the important elements of an incident/accident reporting and working up scheme and discuss in particular:

• What policies with regards to incident evaluation and reporting are necessary and what should be their main contents.
• What structures are necessary to implement the policies: format, who is involved in implementation, who is involved in evaluation of the incident/accident (e.g. workers, safety specialists, industrial hygienists, physicians, managers, other specialists), who has which responsibility.
• Once an incident happened, what are the steps to be taken: for the individual, for the line management, for the BSO/HSEO and other stakeholders.
• How should the results of such an evaluation be communicated: what are the potential audiences and how are they addressed.

The participants will discuss this using several case studies. It is also expected that the participants bring experiences to be shared in the discussion.

The goal of the course is that the participants go home with an example of a general framework for incident/accident reporting, investigation and communication that can easily be adapted to their local situation to prevent recurrence of incidents and accidents.