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SUMMARY NOTES FROM THE MEETING
Discussion points/notes from:
Session #1
- Interesting points were that incidents were being shared at faculty meetings to raise awareness and communication. Increase visibility by making permanent agenda items.
- Safety huddles inspired by the UMHS program, safety huddles are brief “on the same page” pre-meeting discussions.
- Making the Research Smart Initiative as part of agenda items for meetings
- Discussion between resources (money, %effort), part of “good citizenship” and expectations as a responsibility, not an “extra”
- Leveraging outside vendors with EHS to raise awareness and specialty conversations. Spreading out the burden and resource visibility
- Prioritizing facilities responsibilities and managing resources. Sharing with faculty communication.
- Mcubed, ergonomics grant, etc. finding resources for opportunities and safety projects/solutions
- Free PPE for labs
- Rewarding and incentivizing best practices and improving safety culture (pizza party, public recognition, “safety champions”, etc.)
- Reinforcing and sharing data with leadership! - Deans meetings. Informing and engaging Chairs.
- Internal funding and providing resources for specific safety projects (collaborating with onsite resources).
- Bring safety to regular faculty discussions/meetings. Take advantage of transition in leadership and renewed conversations with establishing faculty/staff goals. Establish an improved safety culture/philosophy.
- Multiple committee members involved in other committees.
- Emails sent on “lessons-learned”. Central location to access those lessons and awareness.
- Meeting frequency from monthly to bi-annual (supplemented with safety huddles). Each semester review meetings.
- Replenishing signage/communication/visibility to keep things “fresh”. Establishing a network floor-by-floor, distributing communication. Posters and flyers are distributed for resource awareness
- Making the LRSC a request-based resource.
- Committee composition:
- Some include HR, Staff, “stakeholders”, communications, leadership, etc.
- Communication outward to develop awareness down to students.
- Students participation
Discussion points/notes from:
Session #2
1. Architecture and Urban Planning
●Resource allocation and safety conflicts with space/turnover
●Global communication throughout the semester and multiple projects
2. Art and Design
●After-hours access and access to facilities/equipment - training
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3. Engineering
●Funding/money/time
●Sharing ideas and implementation
●Reporting incidents, how is the information impactful
- Multiple forms and data entry is complicated, make it easy! Communication and contributions encouragement
●Faculty perceived safety- status quo vs. continued improvement (established versus new faculty: accountability and dynamics)
●Infrastructure and communication up and down the networks
●Funded positions for safety
●After hours usage of facilities/equipment
●Faculty involvement/engagement/trust
●Innovative research is difficult to manage-new considerations with safety
4. Institute for Social Research
●Biological specimen research into social research-support and autonomy
●Helping the departments understand and obtain resources
5. Libraries
●Limited spaces for multiple activities-multi-purpose/use spaces
●Standards and training communication
6. Life Science Institute
●Escalation process-managing individual labs or PIs
●Consistency and communication
●What is the proper way to talk about incidents
●Biosafety culture integrating within existing processes- HR utilization, incorporating safety
●Diversity/heterogeneity of research
●Building and laboratory floorplan design facilitating safe research (transporting/exposure materials).
7. Literature, Science, and the Arts
●Variety in research and severity of safety risk
●Supporting safety coordinators
●Evolving standards and trying to keep up with mandates after the fact-review processes and additional clarity
●Disagreements/consistencies between multiple requirements
●Certified training and proper training programs
●Lack of infrastructure support and operations- resource allocation for safety
8. Medicine
●Building design-lab space vs. non-lab space
●Student training-defining space and consistent
●Changing research and changing requirements and changing behavior
●Collaborative and other regulatory body coordination
●Prioritize safety initiative goals-information overload
●Over-saturation of regulatory communication-establishing a different approach (informal vs. formal sustainability)
●De-sensitized perception of risk
●Language and cultural barriers
●How to share lessons-learned
●Faculty compliance consequences
9. Music, Theater, and Dance
●Ambiguous safety practices and standards
●How to utilize safe-operations and training effectively
●Collaborating with EHS
●High-visibility
10. School for Environment and Sustainability
●Field safety and training
●Where are the resources and how to find them (awareness)
●Maintenance and renovations
●Inspections and calendar/scheduling/timelines
11. Health Sciences Safety Committee
Dentistry, Kinesiology, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health, Social Work
●Leadership
12. mcity
●Variety of competency of lab users
●Risk levels are not fully characterized (new technologies)
●Hazard/risk analyses
13. UM Transportation Research Institute
●Older facilities and spaces
●Visitors and training
●PPE and awareness/communication
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14. UM Energy Institute
●Multiple facilities and users (other departments and overlapping departments)
●Risk/hazard assessments of new technologies
15. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
●Multiple department involvement and users
●Space restrictions
Discussion points/notes from:
Session #3
(besides $1 billion and pizza)
●Useful metrics to address information overload
●Prioritizing safety- how do you do that?
●Faculty mentor program -continued/ongoing orientation and re-training
●Additional training and restricted access for “after hours work”
●Visiting different labs and gaining insight into how things are done elsewhere
●Developing an escalation policy and sharing it (locally and globally)
●Having access to training records
●EHS staff member present to meetings
●Support for the safety role
●Communications and trainings
●Increased visibility/campaigns
●University risk and common resources (central messaging)
●Assessing and getting students involved
●Creating a class on research and laboratory safety
●Eliminating redundancies in purchasing and materials
●EHS in-person training
●Annual refreshers training
●Safety incentive program
●Funding resources for maintenance and continued collaborations with Plant and Facilities
●MPathways/MGIS integration/access
●Portable partitions and PPE solutions
●Data access and personal PI/regulatory burden
●Inspection safety consult (non-punitive) -informal review before inspections
●Safety coordinator networks
●The degree of risk/benefit to define problems and solutions (data)
●Refresher training, but making it effective and important
●Anticipate regulations and future requirements
●Shared signage/communication - central location that is accessible
●HR-training that integrates safety -put in the promotion/tenure/hiring process
●Non-punitive data, but the right kind of data (messaging) for Faculty
●Change in PR and communication/messaging
●Crowdsourcing to track data/chemicals
●Summer safety projects funding for students
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RAW DATA NOTES FROM THE MEETING PER TABLE
Table 1:
Modernized laboratory procedures from pen and paper- now they are aware of location of individuals, improved inventory, so there has been a culture shift.
Recent Audits-informal conversations to field issues
Inspection checklists-allowed department to refine them so there is buy in-3 signatures on checklists, PI, inspector, Chair
Meetings to pull safety coordinators together-surface challenges they have to leverage time and resources
Three missions-meeting monthly-setting up 130 safety liaisons in medical school. Addressing lab safety goggles issues. Test strip program inspectors test the chemicals to determine if the chemicals were still good to use.
LSA-Working with EHS on streamlining the routing for safety reports. Reorient it for a larger department. Reports go to Chair, PI and Department Safety person, College committee. Now reports are seen by people who can respond promptly to any deficiencies
Agreement with the 3 signature plan-three layers of oversight. Making the Safety officer a 100 percent position would provide consistent oversite.
Informal inspections helps improve the response to formal inspections and builds trust.
Bring all the safety managers together to learn from each other. Increases communication between managers and PIs and different laboratories.
Identify people to match area of responsibility
Moving grad students desks out of the lab-answer is the new building
Inspector’s hands are tied with things that cannot change due to infrastructure-need report to facilities, business, finance, is there shared funding?
Peer auditing-PI to PI inspections or pre-inspections-colleagues can collaborate on safety issues and recommend changes.
Start with compliance at the bench first then go from there.
Table 2:
Meet monthly to quarterly
Install eyewashes, buy perox test strips and give to labs
Email labs with updates about safety programs or services. Include lessons learned.
Social events about safety topics with EHS,
safety townhalls for medical community. Midway between boot camps. Additional working groups for safety coordinators.
Communication to researchers include lessons learned.
Connect unit to larger campus, adopt programs (mship, waste treatment or disposal…)
Adapt glove policy to specific bldg configuration: one glove policy to transport samples INSIDE building.
Cryogenic gases training in different units
Onboarding information for staff and faculty: include EHS links
Theater community: move away from solvent based materials. Set hours and supervision for studio and shop access. Training manuals.
Buying and providing safety glasses for students
Buddy system
Follow up visits from lab inspections. Also communications after outstanding inspection reports from EHS, follow up from safety committees to identify needs beyond indiv PI control.
Questions: How to share lessons learned?
Table 3:
●Meeting frequency: some every month, some the beginning of each semester
●Med School
○Data driven
■Collect incidents and near misses
■Report back to labs
■Inspection data compiled by ORA
●COE
○Reporting structure
■Admin staff -> Depts -> Safety Committee
●Flint
○Had lab safety audit
○Forming committees
○Faculty support
○Conducting more frequent inspections
○Ensuring that training occurs
■Planning to implement training audit
●UMTRI
○1-2 meetings per year
○Peer support (pressure)
○Required “buddy system” to use equipment
●Art
○Studio coordinator ensures that the student has completed all training prior to receiving access to the shop
○For facilities, most incidents are medical (ex. someone got cut or burned, etc.) rather than reporting facility issues (electrical, water, etc.)
○Equipment LOTO
○Cautionary/Instructional signage for equipment
■Committee developed wording
■Bullet pointed medical emergency signs
●Self inspections?
○Some (eye wash stations)
Table 4:
●Training/PPE to all accessing building
●Full-time safety manager
●Share EHS inspection reports with more stakeholders
●Monthly inspections and meetings include student involvement
●Debrief all incidents, share with committee
●Provide 1 go-to person for a lab
●Coffee & Conversation, Demonstrations
●Putting eyes on spaces/Researchers -- staff monitors, limiting times, access control.
●Shop monitors policing PPE use
●Actually starting a committee
●Communication
●Contributing to their safety
Table 5:
●Meets quarterly
●Increased transparency
●Metrics
●Incidents/near misses
●Lab Managers meeting - share incidents and near misses
●Lab to Lab inspection program
●Meet with faculty review/summarize inspections and incidents
●Give away free PPE
●Monthly meetings
●Training as part of meanings
●EHS present at meetings give updates
●Review incidents/near misses
●Give away free PPE
●Receives a small budget for safety
●Met once
●Meet regularly
●Met once
●Steps to institutionalize and proceduralize safety
●Policies for equipment
Table 6:
Having more meetings, with more structure and documentation.
Set up committee, started meeting on a consistent basis.
Twice a year bring in EHS and have a rep from each lab to meet with them. DPS, EHS, Fire Marshall is there.
Beneficial to go through the process of setting up the committee, documentation of safety processes.
Setting up lines of communication for routine and emergency notifications.
Lines of communication: who needs to know?
It would be helpful to have a better way to communicate near misses, even just within the building.
Group containing everyone in unit who should know about incidents.
Signage campaign: Minion wearing PPE (light, humorous tone) - first thing you see off of elevator, as a reminder.
Walk around, give reminders to wear PPE.
Frequency of meetings:
Once every 3 months
Once every 4 months (trouble with competing with other meetings); twice a year may be sufficient.
Quarterly, but realistically twice a year.
Meets on a project-level basis; meets with PIs, especially when there are new people in lab.
Departments (within large college) respond to their own risk-level; the college level committee is trying to share that information between the departments.
Challenge: trying to get the wet labs to just be used as wet labs and not a study space. Are we really preparing our students properly for the workforce (in industry labs) where they are more strict on safety.
Need to change signage periodically so it is noticed.
Challenge: going to more open labs, need to get used to working where there is a biosafety cabinet even if they are not doing BSL2 work themselves. Not known what is being done one bench away.
Opportunity: Sometimes moving in to a new building means you can start fresh with new safety practices. Likely to be emphasized by the department level safety units (may be just one person: the coordinator, in some departments).
What do you talk about in your meetings?
Twice a year - convenes all the PIs, the students in the labs, the administrators (to keep them informed so they can help watch out for stuff) for presentations on various safety issues. Includes a question and answer period.
Lab-level meetings on safety. At committee meetings, brainstorming session on issues. More than just lab safety: lab safety is road safety.
Table 7:
- COESafe department committees and reporting
- Safety funds available to help correct deficiencies
- Web-based incident reporting system
- Updated door signs
- Foresee and communicate policy changes
- E.g. safety showers
- Held meetings
- evaluated current policies
- Looked at others in same industry
- Safety and legal requirements with industry users
- Monthly meetings
- Open forums
- Discuss incidents/accidents outside UM
- Established safety officer and assistant for each lab
- Safety messages displayed throughout building
- Chemistry Safety committee has been in place for many years
- Executive safety committee
- Safety newsletter
- Recent incidents
- Rewards system (pizza) for good practices like removing clutter, safety glasses compliance, etc.
- Discussed non-traditional safety concerns that could lead to human safety.
- E.g. cyber security
Table 8: Meet monthly to go over staff and fac concerns
Create cmte with diverse reps from different kinds of research : hired coordinator for safety, recruit sublevel liaisons, bring specific concerns to LRSC
Faculty reps from research areas - follow lead of depts that have long history on handling safety concerns - think about how to reach out and sustain that connection
Large machine used by students although maintenance by industry, more aware of safety since LRSC started:annual presentation on safety for students, eg special fire extinguisher for MRI , teach about emergency exits, 30 second safety huddle at regular meetings
Question - should all training be documented?
Temp employees so keep close track of who has been trained.
Small operation with focus on communication, update lab book, systemize orientation to be sure people know from day one - mix of chemistry and shop in restoration work, check list for self eval to monitor safety in the lab/shop
Reactionary debrief to incidents and proactive discussion based on one lab’s annual review so that other labs can be proactive about it, try to get out in front
Meetings include student rep to give input lab concerns, helps to cut down going back and forth, students more likely to comply if involved in discussion
Cmte is mostly faculty because they are the ones who can change culture - mixed results as fac can make changes in some areas but not in areas like infrastructure
Build on existing communication structures
Anyone working on cost issues? Identify issues that are in several labs/dept. But how to pay for this? Can manage one lab, but not cost of all
Safety improvement mechanism sort of like MCubed that would have cost sharing with central support, “safety improvement grant”
A little hard to get fac rep on cmte, esp dept liaisons, people want to get “credit” for their work, eg faculty want it to show as effort, got administration to agree with this
No working alone in lab seen as conflict with fire code requiring that lab door has to be shut so others can’t see and help if a problem - as low as reasonably achievable - is nuclear industry standard ----look for common sense solutions
Take info on safety to leadership
Table 1:
Staff and student turnover is very high.
Getting a PI to prioritize-want a safe environment but not on the radar
Documentation on training
Barrier-Resistance to address conflicts between laboratory issues and those responsible for infrastructure. Building codes keep changing, but cannot change the building. Is an issue a Building code vs operational code? Cannot make a building built in 1950 to comply with 2018 codes. What is the liability if someone is injured in a building due to compliance with outdated building codes? Ie, cannot add accessibility if the current code will not support it.