Medical treatment case definition

The definition of a medical treatment injury or medical treatment case is when a workplace injury, illness or disease resulted in a certain level of treatment given by a physician or other medical personnel under the standing orders of a physician.

The most confusing grey area for companies looking at their safety metrics and KPIs is the difference between medical treatment injuries and first aid injuries. While there is a slither of overlap and that both require 'treatment', the key difference is that a medical treatment case is actually defined as 'requiring' more than first aid.

To further clarify this, OSHA and other authorities have defined what first aid treatment is; if we know what first aid is - then we can quite easily understand and clarify medical treatment cases.

The apparently exhaustive list of first-aid treatments include (here's the full list):

• Applying band-aids, gauze pads and butterfly bandages
• Use of non-rigid means of support like elastic bandages and wraps
• Cleaning wounds on the surface of the skin
• Removing splinters
• Drinking fluids to relieve heat stress

To further clarify injury types, OSHA also offers 5 criteria which reinforce and help to cement these differences:

• First aid is usually administered after the injury or illness occurs and at the location where the injury or illness occurred (e.g., the workplace).
• First aid generally consists of one-time or short-term treatment.
• First-aid treatments are usually simple and require little or no technology.
• First aid can be administered by people with little training (beyond first-aid training) and even by the injured or ill person.
• First aid is usually administered to keep the condition from worsening, while the injured or ill person is awaiting medical treatment.

Understanding and clarifying injuries properly is really important, because medical treatment cases and first aid injuries are 'filed' and counted in separate KPI categories which then feed into a companies safety scores.