If an employee sustains an injury, what should you do? Here are some questions to consider when planning for medical emergencies.
- Do you have a designated medical clinic for employees to get treatment? If not, establish a relationship with one. This saves time and money. It can also reduce stress if employees (and management) know where an employee can get medical treatment for an injury.
- Do you have a supervisor or employee designated to accompany the injured person to the clinic? Do you have a way to contact the clinic to let them know someone is en route?
- Do you have first aid supplies? Are they easy to access? Are they suitable and sufficient for the most likely type of injuries that occur in your workplace?
- Is everyone aware that if the injury is serious, they should not hesitate to call 911? Do you need to dial 9 for an outside line? If so, make sure everyone knows that and it is posted next to all phones.
- If you have more than one entrance to your facility, how will emergency services know where to go? Designate an employee to meet and guide them.
- How will blood be cleaned up? How will clean up material be disposed of?
- Who is responsible for notifying family? How will you contact family? Do you have emergency contact information?
- If the injury is serious, who has authority and responsibility for talking to the media? Is this an injury that requires notification of the State Workers’ Comp office? OSHA?
- How will you maintain communication with the injured employee? Do you expect him to check in? If so, does the employee know that?
- Who is responsible for investigating the injury? How will you prevent a similar incident?
These are a lot of other questions, but this is only a start. Think through what could happen and what could go wrong.
Planning for emergencies helps reduce the stress if they happen.