Health and Safety Programs and Initiatives

Baxter's occupational health and safety teams are addressing the company's health and safety challenges with the following programs and initiatives:

Case Management

Occupational health case management seeks to obtain care for injured employees from qualified providers to improve health outcomes and shorten disability time. Effective case management depends on early intervention, appropriate treatment and establishing a partnership with the injured employee. This focus on prevention and case management benefits the employee and helps Baxter manage the medical treatment costs of work-related injuries. See 2008 Health and Safety Performance for more detail.

The occupational health team uses 10 criteria to measure case-management program implementation for large sites (100 or more employees). Facilities must implement at least eight of these criteria to qualify as having a program. In 2008, the team also established five criteria to measure program implementation for small sites (25 to 99 employees). Those sites must implement all five criteria to qualify as having a program.

By the end of 2008, 90 percent of large sites and 70 percent of small sites had implemented case management, exceeding the company’s goal that 50 percent of sites with 25 or more employees implement such programs.

The occupational health team has held quarterly webinars on case management since 2005. These meetings feature medical topics that provide global perspective as well as topics aimed at strengthening U.S. workers’ compensation claims handling.

View detail regarding Baxter's Risk-Based Approach to Occupational Health Case Management.

Ergonomics

Approximately one-third of Baxter's work-related injuries and illnesses relate to sprains and strains associated with ergonomics or falls. To mitigate risk and reduce injuries, the company has dedicated resources to support ergonomics.

In 2007, the occupational health team deployed a 10-Point Ergonomic Program Self-Assessment designed to help facilities identify program strengths and gaps. In addition, in 2008, the team refined its ergonomic consultation process, and began to offer the service to targeted facilities. Six months following consultation, the facility self-assessment scores have improved by an average of 89 percent.

The Baxter Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) intranet features ergonomic pages that offer resources, tools and training materials. The company also offers quarterly worldwide ergonomics webinars on topics such as ergonomics for engineers, and for laboratory and office settings.

Fall Prevention

Slips, trips and falls comprised 17 percent of injury incidents at Baxter in 2008, accounting for 46 percent of the company’s lost days and 23 percent of its restricted days.

In 2007, the safety functional team addressed fall prevention by revising associated global requirements, and by publishing new guidance materials. In 2008, regions developed fall-prevention programs tailored at the local level. For example, Baxter’s Europe region developed a “Slips, Trips and Falls” initiative that decreased these incidents by 38 percent. The initiative included on-site posters and required all facilities in the region to conduct a mapping exercise to identify areas where slips, trips and falls could occur. Facilities then developed site-specific solutions based on the results.

Employee and Family Health and Wellness

Baxter takes the health of its employees and their families seriously and recognizes that a healthy, productive workforce is vital to achieving the company’s goals as well as those of its employees. Through BeWell@Baxter, the company’s global employee health and wellness effort introduced in 2007, Baxter’s vision is to create an internal culture that promotes work-related and personal health. BeWell@Baxter aligns the company’s many health and wellness initiatives under a comprehensive program that raises awareness and supports individual accountability and engagement.

In 2008, Baxter launched its vision for global smoke-free campuses. By the end of the year, 77 percent of company facilities were smoke-free campuses. The target for the end of 2009 is 80 percent of global facilities. In addition, in 2008 Baxter's seasonal influenza prevention program vaccinated 37 percent of employees worldwide, compared to 29 percent the previous year. BeWell@Baxter also introduced a Personal Wellness Profile during the year, offered in 12 languages. Sixteen percent of employees worldwide completed this private personal online health analysis. Baxter plans to use summary data from this initiative to develop programs targeting identified health issues.

Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment

Hazard identification and risk assessment (HIRA) helps facilities prevent occupational injuries and illnesses by identifying hazards in the work environment, increasing employee awareness of those hazards, assessing related risks and prioritizing action plans to address those risks. In 2008, the EHS organization identified HIRA as one of two initiatives to improve safety performance and strengthen the safety culture companywide.

In recent years, Baxter's EHS audit process has revealed weaknesses in the company’s risk assessment process and deployment. Baxter’s EHS management formed a team to reengineer the HIRA process. Based on the team’s recommendation, the EHS organization took the following actions:

In addition, in 2008 Baxter joined the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work’s "Healthy Workplaces" campaign. Campaign partners commit, among other activities, to organize at least one event at their facilities that promotes risk assessment as the first essential step for sound workplace safety and health management.

Leading Indicators

Throughout industry, health and safety performance generally is measured using "lagging indicators" that track injuries and illnesses, such as cases with days lost, days lost and recordable cases (see 2008 Health and Safety Performance ). Baxter uses those standard metrics and also is increasingly implementing "leading indicators" that measure factors that could prevent injuries or illnesses. In 2008, Baxter discontinued tracking performance against the EHS 2010 goal to “Implement at least one health and one safety leading indicator in 90 percent of facilities with 100 employees or more.” The EHS organization delegated this responsibility to the regional level. In place of this goal, Baxter has developed four global leading indicator programs with criteria and targets for effective near-miss reporting, illness and injury case management, health promotion and threat preparedness. Baxter tracks progress against these on an ongoing basis.

Lean Applied to Safety

"Lean" is a manufacturing methodology, aimed at improving quality and efficiency, which Baxter has applied to its EHS programs since 2004. Under Lean, workplace injuries and illnesses represent inefficiency, and therefore, should be prevented.

Baxter has adapted a Lean tool known as the “5Ss” to its safety program. The 5 Ss are Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize and Sustain. These reflect the assumption that a clean and organized workstation improves efficiency. Baxter has added a sixth “S” for Safety. The person conducting an inspection looks for hazards related to factors such as machine-guarding, cluttered walkways and unlabeled chemicals. Reducing these hazards in turn decreases risk. By the first quarter of 2009, 83 percent of Baxter’s manufacturing facilities had implemented a 5S/6S program.

Near-Miss Programs and Safety Culture

In 2008, Baxter identified near-miss reporting as one of two initiatives to improve safety performance and strengthen the safety culture companywide. Baxter takes near-miss incidents seriously. When all levels of employees are actively involved in identifying and eliminating hazards, injuries can be prevented. In 2008, Baxter’s safety functional team established criteria to implement effective near-miss programs. Facilities must implement eight required criteria to qualify as having a program. The 2009 goal is for 50 percent of manufacturing, research and development and distribution sites with 100 or more employees to implement a near-miss program.

Remote Worker Resources

Many Baxter employees, including salespeople, technicians and patient-care educators, work outside of a traditional setting and are highly mobile. Traveling to multiple customer locations in the course of a day and transporting equipment and supplies presents a unique set of work-related hazards. To address these, the Baxter EHS organization developed an intranet site featuring information for remote workers. Topics include lifting guidelines, driver safety, accessing company health and safety resources, and designing home offices according to sound ergonomic principles.