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Category Archives: Download Center
Arc Flash Alert for Healthcare
Hospitals are covered under the OSHA/NFPA 70E requirements. Arc flash/blast incidents can cause severe employee injury and loss of electrical power to key functions of patient care, while the cost of injury treatment may exceed $1,000,000 per case with permanent disability and probable litigation. As one Director of hospital engineering services recently told us, “There are systems in the hospital that we just can’t shut down, and must perform our inspections on live parts.”
We recently published an article on our website in which we continue to recommend the rigorous analysis prescribed by IEEE 1584, and warn against “quickie” or generic 70E arc flash solutions. An industrial facility asked IESO to evaluate arc flash results from another firm that reportedly used a customized program for arc flash analysis. The facility management was concerned about the lack of time the consultant spent on-site, the minimal review of electrical components and the generic results. Our review revealed highly inaccurate information on 90% of the labels including incident energy ratings underestimated by 200-450%, clearly endangering employee safety.
Posted in Download Center, Health and Safety Compliance, Risk Management
Tagged "arc blast", "arc flash analysis", "arc flash", "Dr. Scott Harris", "electrical safety", "healthcare accreditation", "healthcare industry", "ieee 1584", "ieso llc", "iesollc", "iso 14001", "Keith Spencer", "kenneth Harris", "Kenneth Scott Harris", "nfpa 70e", "safety alert", "Scott Harris PHD", "Scott Harris", arcflash, audit, hospital, hospitals, IESO, nfpa70e, OSHA, training
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Lift Platform Safety Alert
A regulation change by OSHA in 2003 all but banned lift platforms. Are you still using them? Many are. Do you have the required written approval? Can you even get it? Download our illustrated safety alert for the latest details on how to handle this issue.
Lift platforms, sometimes called safety platforms, are essentially work platforms attached to a forklift and used to raise personnel. Think of them as a poor man’s aerial lift. Such platforms are in common use and range in our experience from commercially produced and well designed to homemade models that would not even pass for a good deer stand. Since May 1971 OSHA permitted elevation of personnel by a “safety platform firmly secured to the lifting carriage and/or forks” of the powered truck as long as there was adequate protection from falling objects and a means for personnel on the platform to shut off power to the truck.
Posted in Download Center, Health and Safety Compliance
Tagged "aerial lift", "boom lift", "Dr. Scott Harris", "fork truck", "general duty clause", "general industry", "kenneth Harris", "Kenneth Scott Harris", "lift platform", "lift platforms", "lift truck", "removed and reserved", "safety alert", "safety platform", "safety platforms", "Scott Harris PHD", "Scott Harris", "work platform", "work platforms", "written approval", aftermarket, CLARK, compliance, forks, forktruck, HYSTER, lifttruck, OSHA, toyota
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IESO Presenting at 2010 ASSE Conference
Dr. Scott Harris, PhD, Global Risk Manager for IESO, has been accepted to present at the 2010 ASSE Professional Development Conference in Baltimore, MD. On June 14 Scott will present “Chalmette, LA: First Katrina, Then the Oil…” Our web visitors can download an exclusive copy of both Scott’s presentation slides and proceedings paper with the first-hand story right from the front line. UPDATE: Download the audio of Scott’s presentation.
So, what happened in Chalmette? Following Hurricane Katrina, over one million gallons of crude oil from the Murphy Oil USA (MOUSA) Refinery in Meraux, LA released into a populated area. Search and
Posted in Download Center, Hot List, Risk Management
Tagged "Dr. Scott Harris", "hurricane katrina", "ieso llc", "iesollc", "kenneth Harris", "Kenneth Scott Harris", "murphy oil", "new orleans", "oil spill", "oil spills", "pdc 2010", "Scott Harris PHD", "Scott Harris", "search and rescue", "st. Bernard Parish", "winter institute", ASSE, chalmette, EPA, FOSC, IESO, katrina, mereaux, mousa, nola, oil, oiled, PRP, refinery, spill
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Outbreaks and Getting Back Online
It seems the news these days often 
carries stories about viral, bacterial and related disease outbreaks. We all hear and worry about the “usual suspects” such as Norwalk Virus on cruise ships (“cruise ship virus”) or whether we can catch TB, flu or other diseases on an airplane (yes). Even hospitals are not safe from these threats. Johns Hopkins Hospital had a Norwalk outbreak in 2004, described as “one of at least 24” in Maryland in just the first half of that year. That incident lasted three months, sent 13 employees to the emergency room or the hospital, and cost JHH over $650,000. Across the country hospitalized patients are contracting clostridium difficile (c. diff), with up to 438 patients dying every day.
Posted in Download Center, Hot List, Risk Management
Tagged "antibiotic resistant", "clean up", "cleanup office", "cleanup school", "cruise ship virus", "Dr. Scott Harris", "ieso llc", "iesollc", "kenneth Harris", "Kenneth Scott Harris", "national decon team", "norwalk virus", "outbreak coverage", "return to service", "Scott Harris PHD", "Scott Harris", "staph infection", "super bugs", anthrax, biohazard, cleanup, decon, decontamination, disease, disinfect, disinfection, flu, FOSC, FOSCs, germs, hospital, IESO, mdr-tb, mrsa, ndt, norwalk, office, osc, OSCs, outbreak, outbreaks, school, staph, tb, who, xdr-tb
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Fire in the Hole!
Video (with audio) from an EPA cleanup site in east Texas. Cans of crystallized ether had to be exploded on-site. This material is shock-sensitive, has to be handled like an unstable explosive and is too dangerous to move anywhere else. The solution here was a “blow-in-place” scenario. Our ATF bomb tech put the cans in shallow holes, rigged them with a small donor charge and we remote-detonated them.
Refer to the EPA web site at http://www.epaosc.org/site_profile.asp?site_id=06RZ for detailed information.