Comparison of Normal Accident theory to Culture Safety Model

Accidents do happen in hospitals from time to time. While some of these mishaps are preventable, others are unavoidable. The common accident idea is supported by the reality that certain mishaps cannot be prevented. According to one source (Organizational Safety Culture, n.d.), accidents are always a possibility and are inevitably caused by complicated systems. Accident-causing factors include blunders that are not always the result of human error. For instance, the hurricane that caused the storm surge and power outage in the situation at hand is what caused the issue. Hurricane itself cannot be said to be a human error. However, placing the fuel pumps on the ground of the building can be considered a human error since considerations for such an occurrence should have been made.

Safety culture model, on the other hand, stresses the prevention of accident occurrences through avoiding errors (“Organizational Safety Culture”, n.d). In the case under scrutiny, the error that could have been avoided is placing the fuel pumps on the ground floor. Such a step could have aided in avoiding a scenario where power is completely lost.

Why FDA and not OSHA should investigate this Case.

The events in this particular case posed a threat to the lives of individuals, for instance, those who could have been on life support machines. In such a case, some lives could have been lost during the process of evacuation, which means that patients appeared the victim. OSHA deals with issues related to employees (“Worker Protection”, n.d). If the major party impacted by the accident were the workers, it would have the right to investigate the issue. Still, in this scenario, the patients are greatly affected by the accident but not the employees. As a part of FDA’s role is the protection of the citizens, it has the full mandate for investigating this accident.

References

Organizational Safety Culture - Linking patient and worker safety. (n.d.). United States Department of Labor. Retrieved from https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/healthcarefacilities/safetyculture_full.html

Worker Protection: OSHA's Role during Response to Catastrophic Incidents Guide. (n.d.). United States Department of Labor. Retrieved from https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/emergencypreparedness/guides/osha_role.html