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Occupational Safety and Health Data Collection and Injury Prevention Work Group
- July 18, 2007:
Minutes:
Occupational Safety and Health Data Collection and Injury Prevention Work Group
Minutes
Bureau of Labor Standards Central Maine Commerce Center Frances Perkins Conference Room A July 18, 2007
Present: William Peabody, Chair (Maine Department of Labor); Brad Brown (Maine Bureau of Insurance); Brian Doe (Hannaford); Jeff Levesque (Workers' Compensation Board); Kim Lim (Maine Department of Labor); John Rioux (Maine Department of Labor); Al May (Maine Center for Disease Control); Leslie Walleigh (Workplace Health); and Dave Wacker (Maine Department of Labor).
Absent: Peter Doran (Maine Occupational Research Agenda); Stephanie Jazlowiecki (McTeague-Higbee); Steve Minkowsky (Workers' Compensation Board); Louise Morang (Maine Association of Occupational Nurses); Kathy Schulz (Workers' Compensation Board); and Vanessa Santarelli (Maine Department of Labor).
Staff Present: Terry Hathaway, Ted Bradstreet, and Leslie Manning.
Guest: Ned McCann, Director, Bureau of Employment Services, Maine Department of Labor
Call to Order: Bill Peabody called the meeting to order at 10:09 a.m.
June 20, 2007 Minutes: Motion made by John Rioux to accept the minutes as amended. Seconded by Jeff Levesque. Vote, unanimous.
Small Business Survey Analysis ? John Rioux: John said there is no draft yet. There are some questions where MEMIC seems to matter and other?s it doesn?t; one example is the mod rate. Discussion followed. Leslie Walleigh explained that the reason the question was there was to see if companies, with a mod rate of 1, were being offered training by their insurance companies. Bill asked that John and Ted come up with a preliminary report of the survey to the work group by next week.
Bill introduced Ned McCann, who is the new Director of the Bureau of Employment Services, Maine Department of Labor.
How Workers? Compensation Moves Through the Bureau of Labor Standards ? John Rioux: John handed out a summary of the June 26th meeting with Paul Fortier, Workers? Compensation, regarding the BLS coding process for prevention analysis group. John also handed out a matrix, which included sample data problems and times submitted by the coder. Currently, there is a 60 percent error rate. Leslie Manning suggested the work group discuss what is acceptable. Leslie Walleigh said that the purpose of the legislation MORA came up with was for M.O.?s (medical only) to be analyzed. John stated that SafetyWorks! customer?s request profiles, which shows what employers want to see. Currently, One of the major problems is employer demographics as the codes have been changed from SIC to the NAICS. This is a systemic problem that will require some priority at OIT to solve.
Occupational Disease Reporting ? Leslie Walleigh: There is a meeting scheduled later this week with Andy Smith (Center for Disease Control, Maine Department of Health & Human Services), and Bill Peabody (Bureau of Labor Standards, Maine Department of Labor).
Maine Health Data Organization ? Leslie Walleigh: Bill asked that Leslie Walleigh write up the Maine Health Data Organization study on carbon monoxide poisoning project surveillance program and send to Terry so she can forward it to the rest of the work group.
Dave suggested a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with SafetyWorks! and the Maine Department of Health and Human Services regarding the carbon monoxide poisoning project surveillance program. Leslie will need to discuss with Andy Smith.
Workers? Compensation Board Compliance ? Jeff Levesque. Jeff did a power point presentation entitled, ?Compliance and Data Quality at MWCB?. As a result, the insurance rates have stabilized and gone down since 1992. The main focus is on compliance and data quality. The problems are:
? IAIABC OSH code are posing problems w/BLS staff processes. ? Claims Administrators due to processing and data quality problems. ? BLS and WCB staffs will need to develop EDI edits to place compliance requirements on the OSH data.
The benefits are:
? Claims Administrators (CA?s) must submit data more accurately than before ? CA?s must reconcile data before sending further transmissions ? CA?s must identify who is administering claim.
Discussion followed. Brian added that Hannaford has five (5) indicators for improving workplace injury performance. They are:
? Cost as percentage of production payroll (or sales) ? WC claim rate (or OSHA recordable rate) ? Timely reporting of incident ? DART rate (combines lost and restricted work day occurrences) ? Health & safety audits (or inspections, facility/program reviews)
Legislative Update ? Bill Peabody. The current legislative session is over. There is a carry-over of the OSHA 10-hour training.
Other: Dave did follow-up on inviting Bill Coffin, OSHA Area Director, to this meeting, but he was not available. Dave will invite Bill to a future meeting when Bill can be on the agenda.
Al asked about the status of the subgroup meetings as a benchmark for what the group is doing. Bill said that the structure has changed to pick the four (4) areas to work on, so it is not quite the same as before. There is a target date of October for a report from the group. The draft last year will be part of this as the group deciding to change the timing before the legislature starts in January.
Leslie Manning added that Maine is the only State offering OSHA recordkeeping training to employers so Maine has a higher compliance rate because the employers are pro-active in sending those who do the paperwork.
Next Meeting: The next meeting will be held Wednesday, August 15, 2007, 10:00 to 11:30 a.m., in the Frances Perkins Conference Room A., Central Maine Commerce Center.
Adjournment - The meeting adjourned at 11:54 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Terry M. Hathaway, Recording Secretary
