The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration today announced a final rule requiring employers to notify OSHA when an employee is killed on the job or suffers a work-related hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye. The rule, which also updates the list of employers partially exempt from OSHA record-keeping requirements, will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2015, for workplaces under federal OSHA jurisdiction.

Under the revised rule, employers will be required to notify OSHA of work-related fatalities within eight hours, and work-related in-patient hospitalizations, amputations or losses of an eye within 24 hours. Reporting single hospitalizations, amputations or loss of an eye was not required under the previous rule, which required an employer to report only work-related fatalities and in-patient hospitalizations of three or more employees.

David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health, said in a statement that the revised rule will significantly enhance OSHA's ability to target resources to prevent further injuries and save lives.

“The data from these new reports will enable OSHA to better identify workplaces where workers are at the greatest risk and to target our compliance assistance and enforcement resources accordingly,” Michaels said. “This new rule will help establish a new relationship between OSHA and employers whose employees have been seriously injured.”

OSHA also updated the list of industries that, due to relatively low occupational injury and illness rates, are exempt from the requirement to routinely keep injury and illness records.

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