The ORO Research Safety Audit Checklist

Safety in the workplace is vitally important. Use this checklist to make sure your workspace complies with industry health and safety standards.

Research facilities must provide access to the appropriate infrastructure in order to conduct their studies safely, including chemical fume hoods, lab ventilation systems, emergency showers and eye wash stations, ground-fault circuit interrupter outlets and ground-fault circuit interrupter outlets.

1. Sign-in
Login refers to a set of credentials used to access computer systems, websites or applications – usually using username and password credentials.

One of the key aspects of conducting a safety audit is communicating its results to employees. Doing so encourages accountability while contributing to creating a safer workplace environment. Posting them online provides another form of transparency.

2. Sign-out
Studies have demonstrated the efficacy of checklists in improving both patient safety and team communication in an operating room setting, but compliance is critical to their effectiveness.

Surgical safety audit checklists have proven their value by improving procedures and outcomes in operating theatres. Though initially resistive, successful audit programs can be implemented with sufficient support.

3. Sign-up
An audit report provides a summary of findings from an inspection, detailing recommended corrective actions and prioritizing and categorizing each safety hazard accordingly.

Psychometric analyses demonstrated that the designed checklist had high levels of validity and reliability for inspecting architectural, technical services, and managerial safety aspects in administrative buildings currently in operation. These results can assist stakeholders to quickly detect problems.

4. Sign-in
Safety in the workplace is of utmost importance for productivity, efficiency and profitability. Utilize this checklist to promote a safer working environment.

ORO ensures research compliance with VA policies and Federal requirements for human subject protections and laboratory animal welfare, such as conducting site reviews and investigating allegations of noncompliance. In addition, ORO facilitates compliance by training facility Research Compliance Officers and overseeing their activities.

5. Sign-out
Utilizing “process measures”, such as run charts, can assist teams in monitoring how well they are doing. Sharing stories of near misses or adverse events may serve to inspire them.

Health System leadership designed a new surgical safety checklist process to address behavior deficits identified during random OR audits, which were then implemented through training sessions and videos. Results demonstrated increased use of this revised checklist during subsequent re-audits.

6. Sign-up
ORO’s team of professional services staff collaborate closely with researchers in order to promote research integrity throughout design, conduct and review processes as well as compliance with policies and regulations. ORO also conducts onsite evaluations of research facilities and programs.

This study examined the implementation of selected components of the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist in an operation theater setting and revealed that low compliance is due to lack of recognition among staff regarding its purpose and benefits, leading to low levels of compliance with this checklist.

7. Sign-in
Sign-in allows users to gain entry to a secure system, website or application without being seen by potential trespassers. Usually this involves entering their username and password or other means.

Safety audit templates can help ensure all aspects of workplace safety have been evaluated; it is, however, crucial that they reflect your specific environment.

8. Sign-out
The Office of Research Oversight (ORO) monitors Georgetown University research compliance in areas including human research subject protection, animal welfare considerations, laboratory safety protocols, information security practices and research misconduct.

Create custom safety audit checklists and other mobile forms using Device Magic’s free form builder. Simply drag-and-drop questions, photos, free text and instructions into place to create an offline checklist that you can use immediately.

9. Sign-in
Login credentials allow a user to gain entry to a system, website or app without being visible to outsiders and is often employed for security purposes in order to avoid hacking and unauthorised access.

Checklists make safety auditing simpler for employees to take seriously, encouraging everyone involved to work safely while meeting all legal obligations.

10. Sign-out
The WHO surgical safety checklist has been shown to significantly decrease morbidity and mortality globally, however its “sign out” element can often be neglected and seen by OR teams as just another tick box exercise.

By using real-time video monitoring and a yellow-backed checklist, the authors created a sign out process which requires surgeons, circulating nurses and anaesthetists to read from their screens while being fully engaged.