OSH star enterprise pilot scheme——a partnership approach to improve the safety performance of construction industry in Hong Kong SAR

Background: The Occupational Safety and Health Council(OSHC) is committed to improve the safety performance of the high risk construction industry.In the past three years,about 40% of the fatal accidents in the construction industry were related to Renovation,Maintenance,Alteration and Addition(RMAA).Due to the poor safety record,some of the RMAA contractors have difficulty in obtaining the Employees' Compensation Insurance(ECI) cover in the market,or if they could obtain the ECI,the premium rate would be exceedingly high.In view of this,the OSHC,the Labour Department jointly launched"OSH Star Enterprise-Pilot Scheme on Safety Accreditation for the RMAA Industry",which prompts the industry to take practicable safety measures to improve the safety of working environment and reduce occupational injuries.The program also helps the stakeholders and insurers to identify safety-conscious contractors and thereby provide them with a favourable premium rate under the Employees' Compensation Insurance Residual Scheme(ECIRS).Objectives: The OSHC launches the Pilot Scheme to improve the safety performance of the RMAA industry through providing safety training,subsidizing enterprise to purchase safety equipment and providing safety audit.We also use financial incentive to encourage RMAA enterprises to join the Pilot Scheme-for those who are accredited as "OSH Star Enterprise"could receive a premium discount from the ERIRS when obtaining the ECI.The scheme also differentiates those safety-conscious and law-abiding enterprises from the poor performers,which helps the industry and public identifying the RMAA contractors who pay attention to work safety.Methods: The Pilot Scheme targets RMAA enterprises that employ less than 50 employees in Hong Kong.A three-pronged approach is used to improve the safety performance of the RMAA industry: the Pilot Scheme provides(1) financial support for the RMAA contractors to buy a transportable temporary anchor device and full body safety harness and its anchor system;(2) safety training on RMAA work safety and safety & health supervisor course;and(3) safety audit.Results: Enterprises that successfully pass the safety audit and satisfied the Scheme requirements will be accredited as"OSH Star Enterprise",which will be valid for two years.These enterprises can also be upgraded to"OSH Gold Star Enterprise"based on their continuous improvement in safety performance.OSHC will set up a register of OSH-accredited enterprises in RMAA works for reference of the public to facilitate their choosing of accredited contractors.The Employees' Compensation Insurance Residual Scheme Bureau will provide privileged premium rate for enterprises with OSH accreditation."OSH Star Enterprise"could enjoy 40% discounts when joining their insurance scheme.For example,a skilled worker's annual premium can be reduced by about HK $ 36,000.While,the "OSH Gold Star Enterprise"could enjoy 50% discounts when joining their insurance scheme,which means a skilled worker's annual premium can be reduced up to HK $ 45,000.Achievements: This Pilot Scheme offers practical assistance as well as attractive financial incentives for the RMAA industry to improve their safety performance.The Employees'Compensation Insurance Residual Scheme provides premium discounts for enterprises that have a good safety record.It provides incentive for RMAA contractors to actively participate in the Pilot Scheme.The Scheme demonstrates that by providing a safe working environment and appropriate personal protective equipment to workers,the enterprise not only helps to reduce the accident rate of the industry but also receive an economic return.The Pilot Scheme bridges stakeholders of RMAA industry,the government and the insurance industry creating an "all-win"situation.This partnership approach to prevent injuries and accidents in the construction industry could be an effective model for other industries.

TBI Technique Improvements for Anesthetized Pediatric Patients Based on Near-Miss Incident Reporting

Purpose: To share our clinical experience of an optimized and comprehensive pediatric TBI technique. Methods and Materials: Through the use of incident learning, safety-critical areas were identified in our procedure for total body irradiation (TBI) for pediatric patients under anesthesia for bone-marrow transplant. The previous procedure lacked flexibility to accommodate various requests from the anesthesia team due to the wide range of patient sizes. To address this issue and to improve the process overall, we updated our procedure for TBI simulation, dosimetry planning, patient setup during treatment, and in vivo dosimetry. A simulation form was redesigned with additional detailed instructions and documentation requirements. The dose calculation procedure was reformulated to remove dependence on setup variations. Tissue compensation determination and therefore dose uniformity were improved by introducing rigorous calculation methods. Calculations were performed on 28 previously-treated patients to compare the dose uniformity using the new versus previous methods. Results: The new procedures improve interdepartmental communication, simplify the workflow, decrease the risk of treating patients in a setup that differs from that used during the simulation, and reduce dose heterogeneity. The new compensator design significantly improved patient dose uniformity: 0.8% ± 0.4% (new method) vs. 4.2% ± 2.3% (previous method) (p Conclusion: A near-miss incident reporting system was used to improve the safety and quality of pediatric TBI procedures under anesthesia.

Will Banning Begging Improve Traffic Safety?

On August 2,Zhuhai,a city in south China’s Guangdong Province, issued road safety regulations banning begging in vehicle lanes. The new regulations allow the police to impose fines on beggers.Drivers who buy anything from vendors or give money to beg- gars will also be fined.

Safer solid-state lithium metal batteries:Mechanisms and strategies

Solid-state batteries that employ solid-state electrolytes(SSEs)to replace routine liquid electrolytes are considered to be one of the most promising solutions for achieving high-safety lithium metal batteries.SSEs with high mechanical modulus,thermal stability,and non-flammability can not only inhibit the growth of lithium dendrites but also enhance the safety of lithium metal batteries.However,several internal materials/electrodes-related thermal hazards demonstrated by recent works show that solid-state lithium metal batteries(SSLMBs)are not impenetrable.Therefore,understanding the potential thermal hazards of SSLMBs is critical for their more secure and widespread applications.In this contribution,we provide a comprehensive overview of the thermal failure mechanism of SSLMBs from materials to devices.Also,strategies to improve the thermal safety performance of SSLMBs are included from the view of material enhancement,battery design,and external management.Consequently,the future directions are further provided.We hope that this work can shed bright insights into the path of constructing energy storage devices with high energy density and safety.

Bivariate macro-level safety analysis of non-motorized vehicle crashes and crash-involved road users

The high risk of injury resulting from non-motorized vehicle(NMV)crashes has created the goal of using the 3E strategy to comprehensively improve NMV safety.Traditional safety improvement methods identify hot zones generally by crash frequency or density,which is effective for roadway engineering improvements but neglects characteristics related to other improvements such as safety education.As safety education would be more effective if targeted at the residences of crash-involved road users,the traditional approach to hot zones may therefore provide biased results for such alternative countermeasures.After confirming that 77.17%of NMV crashes occurred outside the involved riders’areas of residence,this study compared the differences between the locations of crashes and the residences of NMV crash-involved riders in safety influencing factors and hot zone identification.A Poisson lognormal bivariate conditional autoregressive(PLN-BCAR)model was developed to account for potential correlations between crashes and involved riders.The model was compared with the univariate Poisson lognormal conditional autoregressive(UPLN-CAR)model and the bivariate Poisson lognormal conditional autoregressive(BPLNCAR)model;the PLN-BCAR model outperformed the other two models in its better interpretation of the influencing factors and its more efficient parameter estimation.Model results indicated that crashes were mainly associated with roadway and land use characteristics,while involved road users were mainly associated with socioeconomic and land use characteristics.The potential for safety improvement method was adopted to identify hot zones for countermeasure implementation.Results showed over 60%of the identified hot zones were inconsistent:they needed improvement in either engineering or education but not both.These findings can help target the type of improvement to better utilize resources for NMV safety.

Improving Food Safety

The government takes a tougher stance on processors and producers violating food safety standards Awave of recent contaminated food incidents,exemplified by an E.coli outbreak in Germany and the discovery of industrial plasticizers