Characteristics of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses in ... - Maine.gov

Coding Summary
Characteristics of Work-related Injuries and Illnesses in Maine 1999_________________
The First Reports of Occupational Injury or Disease
are read by staff who assign codes to the occupation,
nature (kind) of injury, part of body injured, source of
injury, and the event leading up to the injury. The
coder selects codes from one to four digits in length.
A 4-digit code is the most detailed description and a
1-digit code is the most general category.
Occupation codes are all 4-digit codes.
When an injury is described on a First Report of Occupational Injury or Disease, the coder
goes through the following process:
♦ codes 4-digit level for
♦ nature
♦ part of body
♦ source of injury
♦ event
♦ if not enough detail,
uses a 3-digit or 2-digit code
For example, if the report indicates that the fingertip was amputated:
♦ 0311-amputation, fingertip is coded
If the report indicates an amputation but no body part is mentioned:
♦ 031-amputation would be used since there is not enough information to
identify the body part
If the injury was described as bleeding, with no other detail:
♦ 03-open wound would be used because the coder would not know
whether it was an amputation, animal bite, cut or puncture
Due to space limitations, the tables in this publication only display 1- and 2-digit levels,
with a few of the more common 3-digit and 4-digit levels.
The next page shows a small sample of the nature codes to help explain this coding structure.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Maine Department of Labor 48
Bureau of Labor Standards