Type of Occurrence Classification System - Safe Work Australia

B. Coding GuidelinesSTEP 4 - CODING THE BREAKDOWN AGENCYStep 4 - Identify the object, substance, or circumstance that wasprincipally involved in, or most closely associated with, the breakdownevent and allocate an appropriate code from the Agency Classification.STEP 5 - CODING THE AGENCY OF INJURY OR DISEASEStep 5 - Identify the object, substance, or circumstance which was thedirect cause of the most serious injury or disease, as identified in Step1, and allocate an appropriate code from the Agency Classification.38. The agency classification has been developed to identify the chemicals, products,processes or pieces of equipment that were involved in an injury or diseaseoccurrence. The System uses the agency classification to: (i) identify the chemical,product, process or equipment that was most closely associated with the breakdownevent - this is known as the breakdown agency; and (ii) identify the chemical, product,process or equipment that was the direct cause of the most serious injury or disease.This is known as the agency of injury/disease.39. The ‘breakdown event’ is defined as the point at which things started to gowrong and which ultimately led to the most serious injury or disease.40. In determining the breakdown event, the point at which things started to go wrongmay not be obvious or may not be included in the description. In these cases,coders should select the first event in the chain of events leading to the injuryor disease as the breakdown event. Example: Fell off ladder and then hit by forklifttruck. The ladder would be selected as the breakdown agency in this case while theforklift truck would be selected as the agency of injury/disease.41. Where difficulty is encountered in selecting an agency because there was morethan one agency associated with the breakdown event, coders should selectthe agency that would be more likely to be acted upon to prevent a recurrenceof the breakdown event. For example, if a truck hits a pothole and veers out ofcontrol resulting in an injury to the driver, the truck and pothole are agenciesassociated with the breakdown event of hitting the pothole. The pothole should beselected as the breakdown agency because it is the factor most likely to be actedupon to prevent a similar incident occurring on that stretch of road.42. The agency classification allows coding to the four-digit level. Previous versions ofTOOCS coded only to a three-digit level. The classification is the same at the threedigitlevel as previous versions of TOOCS, with some minor exceptions due tocorrection of errors and the addition of extra agency choices.Type of Occurrence Classification System 3 rd Edition 15