County's new safety director pinpointing injury causes

By Debbie Ingram
Published: February 08, 2010

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Even in a soft hiring freeze, county officials are finding one new hire is justified.

Last fall, Houston County Commissioners approved the hiring of a part-time safety director to implement a safety program that could reduce accidents and injuries in an effort to lower the county’s workman’s compensation claims.

Kelly Crowell, former industrial safety director for Georgia Pacific, was hired last fall and has just surpassed 200 hours on the job by presenting an improvement plan to county officials.

“The main goal is to reduce the number and severity of occupational injuries, and to lower our workman’s comp cost,” said Crowell, noting that the county’s workman’s compensation has increased 83 percent since 2006.

This year’s workman’s compensation premiums exceed $655,900.

Crowell said she looked at five years worth of data to identify what types of accidents employees are having and where they are occurring. That chore was hampered by record-keeping that was not consistent by department. In the past, safety responsibilities have been tacked onto the EMA director’s job.

“We want to put together a monthly chart of accidents for trend analysis,” Crowell said.

In looking at injury by body part, Crowell found 24 percent of all accidents are hand, finger and thumb injuries. Another 16 percent involve multiple body parts. Thirty percent of all injuries are to the knees, ankle, foot and/or toes.

Crowell said she took a relatively small area of injury – eye injuries, which accounts for 10 percent of all injuries by county employees – and discovered that 83 percent of all eye injuries involve foreign material in the eye. It is an injury which can be dramatically reduced by wearing goggles and safety glasses.

Crowell has toured county buildings, including the courthouse, administrative building, community corrections, and the extension building and met with various county department heads on their respective safety policies.

Plans for safety improvement include:

Develop safety policies and a safety manual;

Develop reporting, response and investigation plan;

Set safety training;

Revamp the safety committee;

Compile monthly data of accidents and safety issues.

“It’s always been a goal that we have a safety program,” Commissioner Bobby Snellgrove said. “It is our desire we send our employees home safely.”

Officials are also looking at ways to reduce workman’s compensation costs through higher deductions.