Measuring the Unacceptable: Injury and Fatality Rates in BC

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Measuring the Unacceptable Injury and Fatality
Rates in BC

• A presentation by
• Dave Anderson
• President/CEO WorkSafeBC
• May 2008

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Overall Provincial Injury Rate

• This is a composite rate an average
• Based upon accepted time-loss injuries and
  fatalities
• Expressed as injuries per 100 Full-time
  Equivalent person-years of employment

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Provincial Injury Rate 1995-2007 (per 100 FTEs)
3.07
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But

• The global provincial line obscures the detail
• Each sector has its own trends
• Changes in employment levels between industries
  skew the rate from year to year, obscuring real
  trends
• So we look at things by sector

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Injury Rates By Sector
2007Trend
Note 2007 data not finalized until June 2008
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But

• These sectoral rates still represent all
  time-loss claims without reference to severity
• Paper cuts ( with one day of wage loss) and leg
  amputations are considered to be equal.??????
• Historically, we have referred to serious
  injuries as a cohort of 165 different ICD9 Codes
  
• but these only covered 2 of claims and 17 of
  claims costs

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So, how should we define Serious Injuries?

• We asked our doctors, which diagnoses were the
  most serious 275 ICD9 codes.
• PLUS
• Significant initial health care ( eg. surgery,
  hospital stay, complex diagnostics - MRIs).
• Fatalities
• 28 or more days of wage loss
• 30 of claims and 85 of claims costs

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Provincial Injury and Serious Injury Rates
9
Primary Resource Sector
10
Forest Sector
11
Manufacturing Sector
12
Construction Sector
13
Transportation Warehousing
14
Trade Sector
15
Public Sector
16
Service Sector
17

• What about fatalities ?

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Provincial Fatality Rate 1995-2007 (per 100 FTEs)
6.6/100,000
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Categorizing Fatalities - Sector
Construction
Manufacturing
Service
Primary Resources
Transportation Warehousing
Self-insured
Public Sector
Trade
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Categorizing Fatalities - Cause
59
45
71
68
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12
139
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So..

• You ( we ) are making more progress than previous
  statistics were able to demonstrate
• ( at least in most sectors).
• More importantly, we can now target better and
  record progress better.

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Thank you