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SIF Potential Screener

Screen an incident or near miss for serious injury and fatality potential, using the high-energy and direct-control logic from energy-based safety research. Use it to decide which events deserve a full investigation. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.

A direct control targets the high-energy source specifically, reduces the energy so a serious injury is no longer the likely outcome, and still works if someone makes an unrelated mistake — for example proven isolation, a hard physical barrier, or fall arrest. Training, procedures, signage, experience, supervision and PPE alone are not direct controls.
Classification

Frequently asked questions

What is a potential SIF (PSIF)?

A potential serious injury or fatality is an event where high energy was released in the absence of a direct control, but no serious injury actually occurred. In other words, the conditions for a fatality were present and the outcome was fortunate. These events deserve the same investigation depth as an actual serious injury.

What counts as a high-energy hazard?

Research underpinning energy-based safety uses a threshold of roughly 1,500 joules of physical energy, above which a serious injury or fatality becomes the most likely outcome of contact. Common examples include falls from height, mobile equipment near workers on foot, suspended loads, electrical contact, arc flash, high pressure, hot substances and vehicle incidents at speed.

What is a direct control?

A direct control is a safeguard aimed specifically at the high-energy source, which reduces the energy to a level where a serious injury is no longer the likely outcome, and which works even if someone makes an unrelated error. Hard physical barriers, proven energy isolation and fall arrest are direct controls; training, procedures, warning signs and awareness are not.

Why screen incidents for SIF potential?

Because the causes of serious injuries differ in kind from those of minor ones. Grading investigation effort by what actually happened means the most informative events — the ones where luck intervened — receive the least attention. Screening by potential directs effort to the events that predict fatalities.