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OSHA unveiled a new tool today to help companies determine if employee injuries and illnesses are recordable or not. Called the OSHA Recordkeeping Advisor, it is powered by elaws®, interactive e-tools provided by the Department of Labor that provide information about federal employment laws.

Essentially, the OSHA Recordkeeping Advisor is an optimized injury and illness decision tree. It asks a series of questions about where and how an injury or illness occurred and then makes its recommendation on whether the incident is recordable or not.

According to OSHA’s press release, the tool is intended to help determine:

  • Whether an injury or illness (or related event) is work-related
  • Whether an event or exposure at home or on travel is work-related
  • Whether an exception applies to the injury or illness
  • Whether a work-related injury or illness needs to be recorded
  • Which provisions of the regulations apply when recording a work-related case

The elaws tool does not store any information and cannot address the particular circumstances of the injury and illness, so user discretion is required. It does, however, provide good information and tips about the application of the Recordkeeping Standard (29 CFR 1904) and links to additional resources.

This is the second injury and illness related news to come out of OSHA in a week. Last Wednesday, OSHA announced a proposed rule to reconfigure the way it determines what industries are partially exempted from the injury and illness recordkeeping standard. It also lowered the reporting threshold for inpatient hospitalizations. You can read more about those changes in our blog post, Proposed OSHA Injury and Illness Recordkeeping Rule Would Force Employers to Report Amputations and All In-patient hospitalizations.