Can you
believe it’s already April? This happens to be one of my favorite months of the
year for a couple of reasons. First of all, it means that Spring has sprung
and the weather starts to get appreciably warmer (at least in the part of the
country where I live). It also happens to be the month during which I celebrate
my birthday. However, when you get to be my age, you tend to have everything
you really need, and the presents I get are usually shoved
into the back of the closet. But that does not stop my two daughters from using
their daddy’s credit card to try and buy me the perfect gift.
This year,
the girls bought me one of those new “smart” phones, the fancy kind with a big
fat display screen and numerous other built-in goodies. I’ll admit it took me a
few hours to figure out how to place a call, answer a call, and send an email
using my new smartphone. But after conquering those basic tasks, I decided it
was time to try and download some of those fancy new Apps I keep hearing about.
Being the
consummate safety professional that I am, I decided the first App I should
download was the OSHA Heat App that came out a couple of years ago. You know the one; if an employee is
working his butt off, but is not sure if he should be thirsty for a drink of
water, he simply pulls out his smart phone, connects to the internet, opens the
OSHA Heat App, enters several variables like temperature, humidity, expected workload
and his mother’s maiden name, then presses a button and crosses his fingers
that the App does not crash; and if all the stars align and he bought an
unlimited data plan for the smartphone, it alerts the worker whether or not it
is time to stop and get a drink of water. I know what you’re thinking; “how did
I ever get along without this App!” But believe it or not, this App only cost
OSHA a little more than a quarter-million taxpayer dollars to have developed.
So after downloading that hot new App (no pun intended; actually, it was intended),
I set out to find more safety-related Apps to download from the world-wide web.
What I found
was that there were actually quite a few OSHA-related safety Apps available,
some good and some not-so-good. In fact,
OSHA held a contest last year to encourage people to develop health and safety-related
Apps, and you can see their list of winners on their website.
But I wanted to research ALL of the safety Apps available on the web so I could
pick out the most useful ones, based on factors like download speed, ease of
use, and most importantly, potential for preventing an injury. And I narrowed
them all down to the top four most useful Apps, which I downloaded onto my smartphone.
Suddenly a
thought came to me; since people today are simply too busy to research all of the
Apps that are available for download on the internet, I should publish my list
of what I have deemed to be the top four OSHA-related safety Apps available,
and let others share in this wealth of knowledge. So here they are, appearing
in no particular order, my list of the four best OSHA-related safety Apps
available on the web:
OSHA Cold App – this App is the
obvious compliment to the OSHA Heat App. Here are the instructions on how to
use this App:
Place your smartphone face up on the
ground in an open area located outdoors, exposed to the elements. Wait 12
minutes, and then scratch a fingernail over the screen. Then look at the
screen; if you see a layer of frost buildup on the screen, very cold weather has
been detected. You should immediately take a break and sip some hot chocolate.
OSHA Black Ice Detection App –
this is another cold weather-related App, and it helps you detect when a thin
layer of hard-to-see "black ice” has built up on sidewalks or pavement, which
could lead to a nasty slip and fall. To use this App, follow these
instructions:
Place your smartphone flat on its back
on top of the sidewalk or pavement. Use one hand (either left or right) to give
the phone a shove. If the phone easily slides across the pavement, black ice has
been detected, and you should immediately apply some ice-melting compound
before walking on the sidewalk or pavement.
OSHA Suspended Overhead Load Avoidance
App – insures you become aware that a load is suspended over your head
when working near cranes and hoists; failure to know this could result in
potential injury should the load be lowered on top of you. Here is how you use
this App:
Turn on the “camera” function of your
smartphone. Point the phone straight up into the air directly over your head,
then look up through the viewfinder or at the display screen (whichever is
applicable to your smartphone). If you see a load suspended directly over your
head through the viewfinder or on the screen of your smartphone, you should
immediately move to a different area. Repeat this process often.
OSHA Proper Lifting Technique App
– this App is designed to automatically alert you when you fail to use proper
lifting techniques when picking up a box or similar load off the floor,
exposing you to a potentially painful back injury. The instructions for using
this App are listed here:
Place your smartphone flat on the top
of your head, and maintain your head in an upright position so that the phone stays
balanced on top of your head. Then, carefully lower your body by bending your
knees while keeping your back straight and maintaining your head in an upright
position, taking care to keep the phone balanced on your head. Then grasp the
object to be lifted with both hands, and slowly stand back up by straightening
your legs while keeping your back straight and your head up. If the smartphone
slides off the top of your head at any time during this process, it is
telling you that you did not maintain proper lifting form, and the lift must be
aborted at once!
I think
you’ll agree that these four new smartphone Apps are a “must have” for both
safety professionals and employees at many of our workplaces. And best of all, each
one of these Apps work with all nine versions of the iPhone, as well as on all Android
phones. Plus, they can all be downloaded for FREE at our website (oshatraining.com). So please, share this blog post with everyone
in your network so they too can benefit from my research.
Do you have other
smartphone Apps that you highly recommend? Or better yet, can you dream up an
idea for a new OSHA Safety App that we could develop together? If so, share
your idea with me by entering it into the Comments box below. And if your idea
for a new smartphone App looks as promising as these I have found, I may even
have it developed and put up for sale on the web; then you and I can split the
profits!
Oh yeah. In
closing, I remember that there is one more thing I really like about the month
of April; it is the month during which we get to celebrate April Fool’s Day.
Hope no one pulls one over on you!
