2008 Health and Safety Performance

Baxter conducts business worldwide, with more than half of its employees outside the United States. The company’s operations consist of the following types of facilities, in order of decreasing number of employees:

Recent trends in these operations include increasing automation, facility expansions, especially in Asia Pacific, and a growing remote workforce. These trends, combined with the types of sites listed above, present distinct workplace hazards and opportunities for improvement.

The company tracks four main safety indicators: cases with days lost rate, days lost rate, recordable case rate and restricted days rate. The first two are integrated into senior managers' annual performance management objectives and impact compensation. The environment, health and safety (EHS) organization reports safety performance to Baxter’s senior leadership every other month and to Baxter’s manufacturing and supply chain management team monthly.

Health and Safety Performance At-a-Glance

In 2008, Baxter’s cases with days lost rate decreased 24 percent from 2007, its days lost rate decreased 22 percent, and its recordable case rate decreased 9 percent, while its restricted days rate increased 24 percent from 2007.

The following table summarizes Baxter’s performance in 2004-2008, and when applicable, its progress toward the company’s 2010 EHS goals. Click on underlined items to view performance graphs with regional and other breakdowns and global rates.

Indicator 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2010
Goal
Cases with Days Lost Rate1,2 0.45 0.30 0.31 0.25 0.19 0.163
Days Lost Rate 1,2 11.37 7.08 6.94 5.45 4.23 3.984
Recordable Case Rate 1,2 1.60 1.52 1.35 1.41 1.29 1.255
Restricted Days Rate 1,2 18.74 22.80 16.80 15.72 19.46 n/a
Employee/Contractor Serious Incidents (total number) 3/0 9/0 4/0 12/1 7/2 n/a
Employee/Contractor Fatalities (total number) 0/0 2/2 0/1 0/0 0/1 n/a
Worldwide Workers' Compensation Estimate (in
millions)6		 $22.4 $20.6 $15.2 $14.9 $14.4 n/a

1 All rates based on 100 full-time employees working one year, which equals 200,000 work hours. For tracking purposes, Baxter applies U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration recordkeeping practices worldwide.
2 Cases with days lost – Work-related injuries or illnesses that cause an employee to lose at least one full day after the date of the incident.
Days lost – Number of days lost (including weekends and holidays) due to work-related injuries and illnesses.
Recordable cases – Work-related injuries or illnesses requiring medical attention beyond first-aid, including cases with days lost.
Restricted days – The number of days an employee or supervised contractor is unable to work full duty (including weekends and holidays) due to a work-related injury or illness. The date of injury and date of return to full duty are not counted as restricted days.
3 2010 goal for cases with days lost rate was modified from 0.22 to a more ambitious rate of 0.16 based on 2008 safety performance that met the goal early.
4 2010 goal for days lost rate was modified from 5.00 to a more ambitious rate of 3.98 based on 2008 safety performance that met the goal early.
5 2010 goal for recordable case rate was modified from 1.27 to a more ambitious rate of 1.25 based on 2008 safety performance.
6 Workers’ compensation costs are medical expenses due to work-related injury or illness and a portion of the employee’s salary while disabled. Exact costs worldwide are difficult to obtain due to international privacy laws, so Baxter uses costs in the United States and Puerto Rico and extrapolates the data worldwide.

Baxter tracks safety performance data by region and by business. In 2008, the cases with days lost rate and recordable case rate for each region improved (decreased) from 2007. The days lost rate improved for all regions compared to 2007 except Latin America, where the rate increased by 18 percent. The restricted days rate increased for all regions except Europe, where the rate decreased by 13 percent. Baxter attributes the global increase in the restricted days rate to the companywide emphasis on case management and on reducing the number of cases with days lost.

Case Management

A focus on prevention and case management helps Baxter manage the medical treatment costs of work-related injuries. Incident avoidance and case management have saved Baxter an estimated $8.0 million since the company launched the case management program in late 2004.

View a comparison of Baxter’s performance to average occupational injury and illness rates for several related industries.

See a list of Baxter's Great Health and Safety Performers in 2008.

Serious Incidents

Baxter’s safety function is addressing the challenge presented by the following paradox: a high number of serious incidents in the face of overall safety performance improvement.

Baxter regrets these unfortunate events, and is working to prevent future serious incidents through improvements in its hazard identification and risk assessment process and through safety improvement initiatives. Local management thoroughly investigated these incidents, developed corrective and preventive actions, and shared lessons learned to prevent recurrence.

Main Sources of Injuries

Baxter’s safety function regularly evaluates the main sources of injuries to identify trends and address opportunities for improvement. The following chart shows the sources of work-related injuries at Baxter in 2008.

The following chart shows the types of work-related incidents at Baxter in 2008.

Baxter’s Occupational Health and Safety functions work to prevent injuries with the following programs and initiatives: