Recommendation 20. The institution promotes academic and industrial/government partnerships that allow academic researchers to learn from strong and well-developed safety cultures in industrial and government laboratories.
Tools for Recommendation 20
- Safety Series
Available at International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group
Deals with the concept of safety culture in the nuclear power industry. - Rethink Biosafety
Available at Nature.com
Tim Trevan (2015) argues that the biological research community can learn from the nuclear industry, which has a culture that focuses on preventing failure. The nuclear industry adopts the practices of a “high-reliability organization” (HRO). Some characteristics of an HRO are that all members of the organization ask “What can go wrong, and how do we prevent it?” They are mindful of their environment, pay attention to unexpected changes to a process, and look for possible causes of catastrophic failure. The systems are designed to be redundant to mitigate system-wide failure. Finally, they value expertise and recognize that new members of the team might have the knowledge and skills to spot unsafe practices. - Weick, K. E., & Sutcliffe, K. M. (2011). Managing the unexpected: Resilient performance in an age of uncertainty (Vol. 8). John Wiley & Sons.
Available at Amazon.
In-depth resource on HROs. - BioRaft Blog by Matt Segal on High Reliability Organizations.
BioRAFT’s blog has recently been doing a series on how laboratory safety can learn from High Reliability Organizations
http://www.bioraft.com/blog/what-hro-benefits-high-reliability-organizations-lab-safety-culture
http://www.bioraft.com/blog/establishing-mindfulness-improving-safety-culture-tools-hros
http://www.bioraft.com/blog/anticipating-unexpected-building-better-laboratory-safety-awareness
- Chassin, M. R., & Loeb, J. M. (2011). The ongoing quality improvement journey: next stop, high reliability. Health Affairs, 30(4), 559-568.
Available at Health Affairs.
Example of the healthcare industry as an HRO. - Kohn, L. T., Corrigan, J. M., & Donaldson, M. S. (Eds.). (2000). To err is human: building a Safer Health System (Vol. 6). National Academies Press.
Available at National Academies Press.
- One of the Best Safety Speeches Ever By Alcoa CEO, Paul O’Neill (2012).
Available at EHS Safety News America. - Managing Operational Risk
Available at Dupont.
Infographic on Process Safety Management. - Safety Training Observation Program (STOP)
Available at Dupont.
Provides a path to workplace safety by making safe behavior and workplace conditions part of the work culture. - Dow Lab Safety Academy
Available at Dow.
Provides resources for enhancing safety practices. - Driving Toward “0″: Best Practices in Corporate Safety and Health
Available at OSHA.
The Conference Board describes how leading companies develop safety cultures. The report includes survey responses from 65 companies eliciting their best practices for leading safety.
- From Laboratory safety attitudes and practices: A comparison of academic, government, and industry researchers (Schröder, I., et. al, 2015):
- The safety culture in academic labs is less well established as compared to the safety culture in government and industry research labs. Industry labs, overall, display the best functioning safety culture. In our study, PPE compliance and risk assessment were used as indicators of safety culture and the statement is based on based on the finding that researchers’ risk perception in all three work places was similar.
- From The Safe Conduct of Research (Battelle, 2014):
- Everyone is personally responsible for ensuring safe operations.
- Leaders value the safety legacy they create in their discipline.
- Staff raise safety concerns because trust permeates the organization.
- Cutting-edge science requires cutting-edge safety.
- A questioning attitude is cultivated.
- Learning never stops.
- Hazards are identified and evaluated for every task, every time.
- A healthy respect is maintained for what can go wrong.
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