March 30, 2025 • 15 mins
Safety reporting in laboratories isn't just about checking boxes—it's about creating fundamental change that protects everyone. In this candid conversation, Dan Scungio and Sean Kaufman tackle the uncomfortable reality that many lab professionals face: reporting systems exist, but fear of punishment keeps critical safety information hidden.
What happens when a laboratory culture punishes those who speak up about safety concerns? The consequences extend far beyond incident rates. As Dan shares from his experiences as a safety officer, environments where staff fear retribution for reporting incidents create dangerous ripple effects that impact quality assurance and patient care. The hosts explore how power dynamics, from pathologists who ignore safety protocols to managers who punish those who report problems, create barriers to transparent safety cultures.
The critical difference between effective and ineffective reporting systems lies not in collecting data, but in what happens afterward. Sean and Dan discuss practical frameworks for closing the feedback loop, including the "stop, start, keep" model that empowers laboratory staff to identify and implement meaningful changes. True laboratory safety requires moving beyond assigning blame to sharing safety stories openly, ensuring that lessons learned become permanent improvements rather than lessons ignored. By fostering environments where reporting leads to action rather than punishment, laboratories can transform their safety culture from one of fear to one of collective responsibility and continuous improvement.
Have you experienced barriers to reporting safety concerns in your laboratory? Share your experiences and join the conversation about creating psychologically safe reporting environments.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Lab Safety Gurus podcast.
I'm Dan.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Scungio and I'm Sean Coffman, and together we're
providing safety insights forthose working in laboratory
settings, doing safety together.
Well, welcome back, dan, and Ican't believe we're doing this
again very, very soon To findtimes on our schedule.
That's quite impressive.
(00:26):
So welcome back to the show,dan.
How have you been?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I've been doing OK, sean.
It's been busy, but I thinkit's important that we do find
the time to have thesediscussions and, honestly, on my
end at least people arelistening, they're asking
questions, they're saying, hey,we're liking these conversations
with Dan and Sean, but, moreimportantly, I'm liking them.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I am too, Dan.
It's always fun to talk withyou.
I'm not not only consider you acolleague, but I also consider
you a dear friend and and I suredo appreciate the opportunity
to sit down with you and talkabout lab issues and hopefully
influence or inspire people outthere who are listening.
And today it's my turn actuallyto facilitate.
So we're going to actually talka little bit about incident and
(01:09):
accident and kind of reportingaspects and give some strategies
or at least some thoughts onwhat we can do.
So I want to start off first byjust asking you a basic
question, Dan.
You know, what do you think orwhy do you think it's so
important to report incidentsand accidents?
And actually even I want toeven tie this to like clinical
(01:33):
results of tests that seemabnormal.
You know what I'm saying.
Like you get something, it'sjust like that is not what I was
expecting, and why would thatalso be something you may want
to consider reporting?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Because so that's, that's a great question, and so
I've been preaching as a safetyofficer for years.
I don't care if you get a papercut when you're in the
laboratory, I want you to reportevery single thing that happens
.
But but you, one of the thingsyou need to have if you're
safety-minded is a questioningattitude, and so just kind of
(02:10):
what you were just talking about.
When you question some resultsor something that's a little out
of the ordinary, you need tosort of stop, think, act, review
, do those kinds of things.
But that's also true withsafety.
And when you can get your labculture to a point where the
people are reporting near missesinstead of just the incidents
(02:31):
incidents should be a no-brainer, they should be reported.
But when you can get to thepoint where they're seeing near
misses, now they've got thatquestioning attitude and now
your safety culture is there,because not only are they
looking out for safety things,but they're transparent and
they're in a culture where it'sokay to talk about it and their
leadership's okay talking aboutit, because that does not happen
(02:53):
everywhere.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Well, there's a lot of things you know.
Let's, let's we'll kind ofprime the the environment here.
Let's, let's say we're, we'relooking at this and and you're
asking people to reportincidents and accidents and near
misses and even weird results.
Now, that typically means thatsomebody may have to admit that
they may have messed up, theymay have made a mistake.
(03:17):
Now, if I'm paying for mydaughter's college education,
which I am, and I've got amortgage that I've got to pay,
and you know, with the politicalclimate right now, the jobs
well, it may be very hard tofind one right now.
Why would I report if I knowthat I'm going to get in trouble
and could get fired?
Is that a barrier to reportingincidents, accidents and near
(03:42):
misses?
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Absolutely a barrier to reporting and that's not the
kind of culture we want.
I was doing a CAP inspection sowe do inspections of other labs
and I was finding things, doingthe safety part of the
checklist and finding somethings, and the person who I was
(04:03):
inspecting the safety officerof that other system.
She was getting quite upsetwith me and so she took me into
a separate room after a whileand I said look.
I said do you are the thingsthat I'm finding in your audit?
Are they a problem?
Do you disagree with what I'mseeing and am I writing anything
?
That's not true.
And she said no and she justwas very quiet and I said are
(04:25):
you going to get in troublebecause of the results of this,
this audit today?
Uh, if there are things on it.
She said yes, but she couldn'tsay it out loud, she couldn't
say it in public.
Uh, and it it didn't changewhat I had to do, but I just
thought how awful to work inthat environment where a safety
(04:46):
event means punishment or asafety write-up means punishment
.
I I can't even imagine.
You know, I've worked indifferent environments but and
they haven't all been good, butto get in trouble for reporting
something weird.
So if you're going to do thatwith safety and you get in
trouble for reporting somethingthat's off, what about quality?
(05:07):
You touched on it already,right?
So why am I going to reportthat this QC is a problem or
that this needs recalibrationbecause these results aren't
looking good?
But I'm not going to sayanything because I might get in
trouble.
Now you're affecting patientresults, now you're affecting
patient care.
That is a terrible, terribleenvironment to be in and I hope
(05:28):
there aren't too many labs wherethat's the case.
In some cultures and other partsof the world we have power
distance.
We have that a little bit inthe United States, in some
places too where, for instance,like a co-pilot doesn't dare say
anything to the pilot becausethe pilot's just that much more
important.
And so if my pathologist walksin the lab and I notice he
(05:51):
doesn't have gloves on and he'sstarting to do some gross
sectioning or something, do Idare say something?
Or is he going to use thatpower distance against me?
Don't you talk to me?
I'm a pathologist and you'rejust a lowly lab scientist.
So there's all kinds of thingsin a lab culture, in an
environment, that can createthose barriers to reporting
(06:14):
which I have been working atchipping away at for years for
all these people who work inthese labs, because people do
reach out, as you know.
They'll reach out to us andthey'll talk about some of these
problems and I wish I could goin and fix those kinds of
problems because it's a terriblebarrier to live with.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
No, it is 100%, and that's you know.
That's one of the things that Iwant to keep talking about here
, because so many organizationswill have a plan for reporting
incidents, accidents, nearmisses and even QA issues, as
you mentioned, dan.
But the problem is is that justhaving a plan does not produce
an outcome If the culture is notpsychologically safe, if you do
(06:56):
not prime the culture andremind people that what matters
here the most is not who's atfault, but what's the issue, not
who's the issue.
What's the issue so that we canfix the what and protect all
the who's?
The reality is is that if youdon't have a culture that
promotes psychological safety,then you, even though you may
have an incident reporting plan,people are not going to use it.
(07:19):
And that brings me to my nextquestion, because this is the
big one, dan.
This is it right?
All right, we've got thisincident accident, you know,
near miss QA reporting system,right?
So when somebody does that theyreport an incident accident
near miss QA reporting system,where does that?
They report an incidentaccident near miss QA reporting
system?
Where?
Speaker 1 (07:40):
does that typically go?
It depends on the organizationit does.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
But let's.
Generically, what we're goingto do is let me rephrase the
question.
Here we go.
Let me rephrase the questionDoes anything happen afterwards?
Speaker 1 (07:54):
usually Usually there should be a response section to
all reports.
So if I have an incident report, it doesn't matter what the
format is that I use.
There should be a follow-up ora response section that is
documented for every incidentthat occurs in the laboratory.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Well, that's it.
That's my point, right there.
Hold on, hang on one sec, right.
If you're in your guest roomand you're changing the bed for
a guest and you hit your shin onthe edge of the bed and you
yell and you hurt yourself,there is no doubt that probably
everybody in the house is goingto know that you hit your shin.
But is there anything done toprevent future shin hitting?
Speaker 1 (08:38):
probably not in the household, because they're just
going to say, well, you justweren't being, you were just not
paying attention.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And let's take that into the lab.
Now, come on, let's be candidhere.
This is the one.
The issue that I have is, Ifeel kind of and unfortunately,
my background's in public healthand sexual health is an issue,
so I'm going to bring that up.
Not that it has anything to dowith this, but I'm going to use
an analogy.
I found many, many collegestudents when I worked as a
sexual health counselor as myfirst job.
(09:05):
I found many college studentscame to college ill-prepared to
deal with sex.
Very ill-prepared because theylived in a household where their
parents believed it was theschool's job to teach them about
sex and the school believedthat it was a parent's job to
teach them about sex.
And so you basically had achild that never learned about
sex because, well, quitehonestly, nobody ever taught him
(09:25):
.
And here's the issue.
This is the biggest issue Ihave.
We teach people in labs toreport incidents, accidents,
near misses and even QA issues,but do we ever empower them
issues?
But do we ever empower themthem as an individual, as a
collective group to make achange as a result of that
(09:45):
incident accident or numerous,or do we simply put that on the
safety department or whoeverreceives the incident report, we
actually make it that we almostin essence, I believe today we
give scientists the ability tothrow their hands up in the air.
Go well, it's no longer myissue.
I've reported.
What are your thoughts on?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
that.
So I like a different kind ofreporting system and I try to do
that in the labs where I work.
So when we have an incidentthat's reported it goes into the
electronic reporting system,employee health and all of that.
And then it could end there andin fact even on the employee
(10:25):
health report that's electronic,it says what could the employee
do to make sure that thisdoesn't happen again, or what
can the manager do to make sure.
And you can type in whateveryou want and nobody ever looks
at it.
But on the laboratory side wehave the four column grid what
happened, where it happened, adetailed description of it, what
(10:47):
you would do to prevent it iscolumn three.
And column four is who wentback to the employee and talked
to the employee about methods orwho made the changes, the
physical changes, whateverneeded to be done to make sure
this doesn't happen again, sothat the loop is at least closed
.
So does that mean in myorganization that repeat
(11:08):
accidents don't happen?
No, it doesn't mean that.
But it does mean that somebodyhas gone back and followed up
with the individual who hittheir shin on the bed and talked
to them about why it happenedand gave them methods of
preventing a reoccurrence of thesame incident.
But it may and it may not.
It may be behavioral, it mightbe physical.
(11:29):
Maybe we need a new chair.
They cut themselves on the armof the chair, something like
that, because we need a doorhandle, whatever, and we, and so
the follow-up, is we fixed bythe way?
So you have to close the loopfor sure.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
No, I like that.
And can I suggest anotherclosing of the loop, which I
love because your model gets towhat I'm going and where I was
going as well.
I have for many years used thestop, start, keep model and I
love it.
Oh, I absolutely love it.
I love it in evaluating what wecould do differently in labs.
I love it in evaluating how I'mdoing as a teacher.
(12:02):
I even use it as how am I doingas a parent?
I even ask my kids what do youwant me to stop doing that I'm
currently doing?
What do you want me to startdoing that I'm not doing?
And what do you want me to keepdoing that I am doing?
It's a wonderful, wonderfultool.
But imagine if we included thatin our incident accident,
(12:23):
included that in our incidentaccident qa reporting.
What, based on what thisincident do you want to stop
doing that you were doing?
What do you want to start doingthat you weren't doing?
And what do you want to keepdoing that you were doing?
And what if we actually uh, um,uh, promoted that, because it's
really what you were talkingabout.
What if we actually actuallypromoted that type of closing of
(12:43):
the loop where we empowerscientists, the lab staff to
identify new things.
They would start doing oldthings.
They would stop doing and, andand.
What they would keep doing thatthey currently are doing Again.
I don't know what are yourthoughts on that, dan.
And what they would keep doingthat they currently are doing
Again.
I don't know what are yourthoughts on that, dan.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yeah, I like that.
It makes me think because I saythis often that 80% of our
incidents are kind of likepeople not paying attention.
So I just wonder how many timespeople would write not paying
attention.
So I just wonder how many timespeople would write stop
daydreaming or stop not thinkingabout what I'm doing, start
focusing on what I'm doing.
But how many times is a persongoing to say that before it
(13:31):
actually has meaning to thechange they're really going to
make?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Well, and that's another deal too, because when
we do a root cause analysis,well, and that's another deal
too, because when we do a rootcause analysis, we really really
have to take the root causeanalysis seriously.
We cannot and it's important,we really truly can't allow
somebody to say I wasn'tconcentrating.
That's not a reason.
(13:57):
It's not a reason, it really isand it's very.
I think it's very frustratingtoo.
We're trying to get down toreally what's going on.
But my point in all this and Iknow we've got it We've got to
come to a wrap here becausewe're on our last minute here.
But here's my point Just likethat child who doesn't have
anybody educating them.
The saddest part for me is thatthe responsibility of reporting
(14:20):
incidents, accidents and nearmisses that responsibility is is
only part one.
The reporting is part one ofthat.
The making a change in theenvironment is part two, because
the difference between a lessonlearned and a lesson ignored is
change.
And if you have an incident,accident, accident, near miss or
a QA issue and all you're doingis reporting it, but you're not
(14:42):
changing anything, that's alesson ignored, not a lesson
learned.
Final words, dan, before weclose out.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yeah.
So this is where thetransparency comes in and this
is what's so key.
I can have three people who cuttheir fingers on a cover slip
because they were cleaning thecounter and didn't notice it was
there.
Whatever, I better be talkingabout that in huddles, in
meetings and with everybody, notjust the people that occurred
with and talking about.
(15:09):
You don't just want to talkabout methods of prevention with
the people who had the accident, but with everybody else,
because the consequences arereal and you're trying to avoid
the consequences going toanybody else.
So that's where, to me, themost important thing is not just
incident reporting, but tellingthose safety stories to
everybody and getting thegetting that information out
(15:31):
there well, dan.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
As always, it is such a pleasure talking with you.
Have a wonderful weekend andwe'll continue to do this.
I look forward to our futureconversations.
Looking forward to it, sean.
We are the lab safety gurus,dan scungio and sean kaufman.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Thank, you for letting us do lab safety
together.
Welcome to the Lab Safety Gurus podcast.
I'm Dan.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Scungio and I'm Sean Coffman, and together we're
providing safety insights forthose working in laboratory
settings, doing safety together.
Well, welcome back, dan, and Ican't believe we're doing this
again very, very soon To findtimes on our schedule.
That's quite impressive.
(00:26):
So welcome back to the show,dan.
How have you been?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I've been doing OK, sean.
It's been busy, but I thinkit's important that we do find
the time to have thesediscussions and, honestly, on my
end at least people arelistening, they're asking
questions, they're saying, hey,we're liking these conversations
with Dan and Sean, but, moreimportantly, I'm liking them.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I am too, Dan.
It's always fun to talk withyou.
I'm not not only consider you acolleague, but I also consider
you a dear friend and and I suredo appreciate the opportunity
to sit down with you and talkabout lab issues and hopefully
influence or inspire people outthere who are listening.
And today it's my turn actuallyto facilitate.
So we're going to actually talka little bit about incident and
(01:09):
accident and kind of reportingaspects and give some strategies
or at least some thoughts onwhat we can do.
So I want to start off first byjust asking you a basic
question, Dan.
You know, what do you think orwhy do you think it's so
important to report incidentsand accidents?
And actually even I want toeven tie this to like clinical
(01:33):
results of tests that seemabnormal.
You know what I'm saying.
Like you get something, it'sjust like that is not what I was
expecting, and why would thatalso be something you may want
to consider reporting?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Because so that's, that's a great question, and so
I've been preaching as a safetyofficer for years.
I don't care if you get a papercut when you're in the
laboratory, I want you to reportevery single thing that happens
.
But but you, one of the thingsyou need to have if you're
safety-minded is a questioningattitude, and so just kind of
(02:10):
what you were just talking about.
When you question some resultsor something that's a little out
of the ordinary, you need tosort of stop, think, act, review
, do those kinds of things.
But that's also true withsafety.
And when you can get your labculture to a point where the
people are reporting near missesinstead of just the incidents
(02:31):
incidents should be a no-brainer, they should be reported.
But when you can get to thepoint where they're seeing near
misses, now they've got thatquestioning attitude and now
your safety culture is there,because not only are they
looking out for safety things,but they're transparent and
they're in a culture where it'sokay to talk about it and their
leadership's okay talking aboutit, because that does not happen
(02:53):
everywhere.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Well, there's a lot of things you know.
Let's, let's we'll kind ofprime the the environment here.
Let's, let's say we're, we'relooking at this and and you're
asking people to reportincidents and accidents and near
misses and even weird results.
Now, that typically means thatsomebody may have to admit that
they may have messed up, theymay have made a mistake.
(03:17):
Now, if I'm paying for mydaughter's college education,
which I am, and I've got amortgage that I've got to pay,
and you know, with the politicalclimate right now, the jobs
well, it may be very hard tofind one right now.
Why would I report if I knowthat I'm going to get in trouble
and could get fired?
Is that a barrier to reportingincidents, accidents and near
(03:42):
misses?
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Absolutely a barrier to reporting and that's not the
kind of culture we want.
I was doing a CAP inspection sowe do inspections of other labs
and I was finding things, doingthe safety part of the
checklist and finding somethings, and the person who I was
(04:03):
inspecting the safety officerof that other system.
She was getting quite upsetwith me and so she took me into
a separate room after a whileand I said look.
I said do you are the thingsthat I'm finding in your audit?
Are they a problem?
Do you disagree with what I'mseeing and am I writing anything
?
That's not true.
And she said no and she justwas very quiet and I said are
(04:25):
you going to get in troublebecause of the results of this,
this audit today?
Uh, if there are things on it.
She said yes, but she couldn'tsay it out loud, she couldn't
say it in public.
Uh, and it it didn't changewhat I had to do, but I just
thought how awful to work inthat environment where a safety
(04:46):
event means punishment or asafety write-up means punishment
.
I I can't even imagine.
You know, I've worked indifferent environments but and
they haven't all been good, butto get in trouble for reporting
something weird.
So if you're going to do thatwith safety and you get in
trouble for reporting somethingthat's off, what about quality?
(05:07):
You touched on it already,right?
So why am I going to reportthat this QC is a problem or
that this needs recalibrationbecause these results aren't
looking good?
But I'm not going to sayanything because I might get in
trouble.
Now you're affecting patientresults, now you're affecting
patient care.
That is a terrible, terribleenvironment to be in and I hope
(05:28):
there aren't too many labs wherethat's the case.
In some cultures and other partsof the world we have power
distance.
We have that a little bit inthe United States, in some
places too where, for instance,like a co-pilot doesn't dare say
anything to the pilot becausethe pilot's just that much more
important.
And so if my pathologist walksin the lab and I notice he
(05:51):
doesn't have gloves on and he'sstarting to do some gross
sectioning or something, do Idare say something?
Or is he going to use thatpower distance against me?
Don't you talk to me?
I'm a pathologist and you'rejust a lowly lab scientist.
So there's all kinds of thingsin a lab culture, in an
environment, that can createthose barriers to reporting
(06:14):
which I have been working atchipping away at for years for
all these people who work inthese labs, because people do
reach out, as you know.
They'll reach out to us andthey'll talk about some of these
problems and I wish I could goin and fix those kinds of
problems because it's a terriblebarrier to live with.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
No, it is 100%, and that's you know.
That's one of the things that Iwant to keep talking about here
, because so many organizationswill have a plan for reporting
incidents, accidents, nearmisses and even QA issues, as
you mentioned, dan.
But the problem is is that justhaving a plan does not produce
an outcome If the culture is notpsychologically safe, if you do
(06:56):
not prime the culture andremind people that what matters
here the most is not who's atfault, but what's the issue, not
who's the issue.
What's the issue so that we canfix the what and protect all
the who's?
The reality is is that if youdon't have a culture that
promotes psychological safety,then you, even though you may
have an incident reporting plan,people are not going to use it.
(07:19):
And that brings me to my nextquestion, because this is the
big one, dan.
This is it right?
All right, we've got thisincident accident, you know,
near miss QA reporting system,right?
So when somebody does that theyreport an incident accident
near miss QA reporting system,where does that?
They report an incidentaccident near miss QA reporting
system?
Where?
Speaker 1 (07:40):
does that typically go?
It depends on the organizationit does.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
But let's.
Generically, what we're goingto do is let me rephrase the
question.
Here we go.
Let me rephrase the questionDoes anything happen afterwards?
Speaker 1 (07:54):
usually Usually there should be a response section to
all reports.
So if I have an incident report, it doesn't matter what the
format is that I use.
There should be a follow-up ora response section that is
documented for every incidentthat occurs in the laboratory.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Well, that's it.
That's my point, right there.
Hold on, hang on one sec, right.
If you're in your guest roomand you're changing the bed for
a guest and you hit your shin onthe edge of the bed and you
yell and you hurt yourself,there is no doubt that probably
everybody in the house is goingto know that you hit your shin.
But is there anything done toprevent future shin hitting?
Speaker 1 (08:38):
probably not in the household, because they're just
going to say, well, you justweren't being, you were just not
paying attention.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And let's take that into the lab.
Now, come on, let's be candidhere.
This is the one.
The issue that I have is, Ifeel kind of and unfortunately,
my background's in public healthand sexual health is an issue,
so I'm going to bring that up.
Not that it has anything to dowith this, but I'm going to use
an analogy.
I found many, many collegestudents when I worked as a
sexual health counselor as myfirst job.
(09:05):
I found many college studentscame to college ill-prepared to
deal with sex.
Very ill-prepared because theylived in a household where their
parents believed it was theschool's job to teach them about
sex and the school believedthat it was a parent's job to
teach them about sex.
And so you basically had achild that never learned about
sex because, well, quitehonestly, nobody ever taught him
(09:25):
.
And here's the issue.
This is the biggest issue Ihave.
We teach people in labs toreport incidents, accidents,
near misses and even QA issues,but do we ever empower them
issues?
But do we ever empower themthem as an individual, as a
collective group to make achange as a result of that
(09:45):
incident accident or numerous,or do we simply put that on the
safety department or whoeverreceives the incident report, we
actually make it that we almostin essence, I believe today we
give scientists the ability tothrow their hands up in the air.
Go well, it's no longer myissue.
I've reported.
What are your thoughts on?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
that.
So I like a different kind ofreporting system and I try to do
that in the labs where I work.
So when we have an incidentthat's reported it goes into the
electronic reporting system,employee health and all of that.
And then it could end there andin fact even on the employee
(10:25):
health report that's electronic,it says what could the employee
do to make sure that thisdoesn't happen again, or what
can the manager do to make sure.
And you can type in whateveryou want and nobody ever looks
at it.
But on the laboratory side wehave the four column grid what
happened, where it happened, adetailed description of it, what
(10:47):
you would do to prevent it iscolumn three.
And column four is who wentback to the employee and talked
to the employee about methods orwho made the changes, the
physical changes, whateverneeded to be done to make sure
this doesn't happen again, sothat the loop is at least closed
.
So does that mean in myorganization that repeat
(11:08):
accidents don't happen?
No, it doesn't mean that.
But it does mean that somebodyhas gone back and followed up
with the individual who hittheir shin on the bed and talked
to them about why it happenedand gave them methods of
preventing a reoccurrence of thesame incident.
But it may and it may not.
It may be behavioral, it mightbe physical.
(11:29):
Maybe we need a new chair.
They cut themselves on the armof the chair, something like
that, because we need a doorhandle, whatever, and we, and so
the follow-up, is we fixed bythe way?
So you have to close the loopfor sure.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
No, I like that.
And can I suggest anotherclosing of the loop, which I
love because your model gets towhat I'm going and where I was
going as well.
I have for many years used thestop, start, keep model and I
love it.
Oh, I absolutely love it.
I love it in evaluating what wecould do differently in labs.
I love it in evaluating how I'mdoing as a teacher.
(12:02):
I even use it as how am I doingas a parent?
I even ask my kids what do youwant me to stop doing that I'm
currently doing?
What do you want me to startdoing that I'm not doing?
And what do you want me to keepdoing that I am doing?
It's a wonderful, wonderfultool.
But imagine if we included thatin our incident accident,
(12:23):
included that in our incidentaccident qa reporting.
What, based on what thisincident do you want to stop
doing that you were doing?
What do you want to start doingthat you weren't doing?
And what do you want to keepdoing that you were doing?
And what if we actually uh, um,uh, promoted that, because it's
really what you were talkingabout.
What if we actually actuallypromoted that type of closing of
(12:43):
the loop where we empowerscientists, the lab staff to
identify new things.
They would start doing oldthings.
They would stop doing and, andand.
What they would keep doing thatthey currently are doing Again.
I don't know what are yourthoughts on that, dan.
And what they would keep doingthat they currently are doing
Again.
I don't know what are yourthoughts on that, dan.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yeah, I like that.
It makes me think because I saythis often that 80% of our
incidents are kind of likepeople not paying attention.
So I just wonder how many timespeople would write not paying
attention.
So I just wonder how many timespeople would write stop
daydreaming or stop not thinkingabout what I'm doing, start
focusing on what I'm doing.
But how many times is a persongoing to say that before it
(13:31):
actually has meaning to thechange they're really going to
make?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Well, and that's another deal too, because when
we do a root cause analysis,well, and that's another deal
too, because when we do a rootcause analysis, we really really
have to take the root causeanalysis seriously.
We cannot and it's important,we really truly can't allow
somebody to say I wasn'tconcentrating.
That's not a reason.
(13:57):
It's not a reason, it really isand it's very.
I think it's very frustratingtoo.
We're trying to get down toreally what's going on.
But my point in all this and Iknow we've got it We've got to
come to a wrap here becausewe're on our last minute here.
But here's my point Just likethat child who doesn't have
anybody educating them.
The saddest part for me is thatthe responsibility of reporting
(14:20):
incidents, accidents and nearmisses that responsibility is is
only part one.
The reporting is part one ofthat.
The making a change in theenvironment is part two, because
the difference between a lessonlearned and a lesson ignored is
change.
And if you have an incident,accident, accident, near miss or
a QA issue and all you're doingis reporting it, but you're not
(14:42):
changing anything, that's alesson ignored, not a lesson
learned.
Final words, dan, before weclose out.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yeah.
So this is where thetransparency comes in and this
is what's so key.
I can have three people who cuttheir fingers on a cover slip
because they were cleaning thecounter and didn't notice it was
there.
Whatever, I better be talkingabout that in huddles, in
meetings and with everybody, notjust the people that occurred
with and talking about.
(15:09):
You don't just want to talkabout methods of prevention with
the people who had the accident, but with everybody else,
because the consequences arereal and you're trying to avoid
the consequences going toanybody else.
So that's where, to me, themost important thing is not just
incident reporting, but tellingthose safety stories to
everybody and getting thegetting that information out
(15:31):
there well, dan.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
As always, it is such a pleasure talking with you.
Have a wonderful weekend andwe'll continue to do this.
I look forward to our futureconversations.
Looking forward to it, sean.
We are the lab safety gurus,dan scungio and sean kaufman.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Thank, you for letting us do lab safety
together.
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