Watch Out…Is OSHA Throwing A DART At You?
Your DART rate is calculated by adding up the number of incidents that had one or more Lost Days, one or more Restricted Days or that resulted in an employee transferring to a different job within the company, and multiplying that number by 200,000, then dividing that number by the number of employee labor hours at the company.
In simple terms the “Number Of DART Incidents” is the sum total of the days indicated on columns K and L of the OSHA log (Form 300). So, looking at it this way, your DART rate is calculated as follows:
[(Column K + Column L) x 200,000] divided by the number of employee labor hours.
Why is it important to know your DART rate? OSHA it to develop annually what is known as a Site-Specific Targeting plan (SST). The SST lays out what categories of companies OSHA considers high priority targets for safety and health inspections in a given year. It amounts to a veritable "Most Wanted" list for OSHA compliance officers.
The chance of a SST OSHA inspection for most organizations will depend on the frequency that their employees miss work, suffer work restrictions, or receive transfer assignments due to work injuries or illness. The source of this information comes primarily from OSHA's survey of employer's incidents of injury and illness for the most current year that data is available, which is usually two years prior to the SST plan year. Employers are required by law to complete the survey. OSHA may also target particular industries that have a historically high injury rate, suspected underreporting employers, companies with other OSHA reported incidents, and those that failed to respond to the survey.
OSHA recently announced its 2008 Site-Specific Targeting Plan. You can find more details about it by visiting www.osha.gov. A careful reading of their SST plan will reveal that if you are on their list you may be subject to a complete, detailed OSHA inspection of your entire operation.
If you fall within the parameters of OSHA’ SST plan we strongly recommend that you quickly evaluate your safety program from an OSHA compliance perspective and prepare accordingly. You can now benchmark the effectiveness of your program using CompEraser’s Safety And Health Benchmark Survey. To access our FREE, on-line safety and health benchmark survey, go to www.comperaser.com today.
CompEraser also comes with on-line, on-demand resources needed to develop and implement an effective safety and health program. These resources include the formalization of your safety team, injury prevention, OSHA compliance, safety training, prompt injury response, workers compensation disability management, plus more. These resources are available 24/7 and used irrespective of which workers compensation carrier you select. Its patent-pending technology also provides unique financial reports for monitoring the effectiveness of your safety and health program on an on-going basis. For more information visit our website at www.CompEraser.com.
