Most incident investigations stop at the actual outcome—what happened in the moment.
However, a more complete picture emerges when we also assess what could have happened. Within these differences lies a wealth of opportunity to learn and improve.
Consider for a moment this example: A worker falls from the top of a 6’ ladder. Consider the possible outcomes – a fatality, a serious injury, a minor injury, or the worker just stands up, brushes himself off, and continues work as if nothing happened. Typically, the more serious the injury, the more attention and effort the resulting event review becomes. If nothing bad happens, it is likely no investigation will be conducted at all. By incorporating potential outcomes into your incident classification process, you can better identify and address the hazards that pose the highest risk to workers that may be lost in current incident investigation methodologies.
Why Potential Matters
Organizations such as the Construction Safety Research Alliance (CSRA) and the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) have encouraged a shift from outcome-only reporting to a classification approach that explicitly captures potential severity. Their frameworks are designed to make incident data more thorough by focusing on whether an event involved conditions — like high-hazard energy or other critical exposures — that could reasonably have produced life-altering harm. Treating near-misses and low-consequence events with the same analytical rigor as significant injuries, when the underlying potential exists, reveals leading indicators that outcome-based logs often miss. Embedding this perspective into routine incident reviews helps safety teams prioritize investigations, identify systemic weaknesses earlier, and target prevention efforts where they will most reduce the risk of serious harm. Below are the concise definitions used in these models:
- SIF: An incident resulting in, or with a high potential for, a life-altering injury or fatality.
- PSIF: An incident that did not result in a severe injury or fatality but could have under slightly different circumstances.
- LSIF: Significant injury outcome without high hazard energy present.
High Hazard Energy and the Energy Wheel
The Energy Wheel is a tool that categorizes different types of hazardous energy—such as gravity, electrical, chemical, and motion. If an incident involves high hazard energy, the likelihood of severe consequences increases. This is why assessing high hazard energy is a critical step in determining classification. Today, you’ll find variations of the Energy Wheel referenced by:
- The Construction Safety Research Alliance (CSRA)
- Edison Electric Institute (EEI)
- Many large contractors, utilities, and EHS software systems for incident classification
A Practical Workflow for Classification
- Document the Incident Outcome – Record the immediate result as typical in a first report of injury: what happened, who it happened to, where it happened, etc.
- Assess for High Hazard Energy – Use the Energy Wheel to determine if high-energy sources were present.
- Determine Potential Severity – If high hazard energy was present, assess whether it could have caused a SIF.
- Differentiate Between SIF, PSIF, and LSIF:
- SIF: Actual severe injury/fatality with high hazard energy present.
- PSIF: No severe injury occurred, but high hazard energy had the potential to cause one.
- LSIF: Severe injury without the presence of high hazard energy.
- Integrate into Review Process – Incorporate classification into incident reviews to ensure trends are tracked and addressed.
From Lucky to Good: The Role of Controls in Safety
When an incident is classified as a Serious Injury and Fatality (SIF) or Potential SIF (PSIF), the work isn’t finished. The real value comes from examining the controls that were in place at the time. Strong, well-designed controls indicate that the organization was good at preventing harm, while weak or ineffective controls suggest the organization was simply lucky this time. This distinction is critical, because luck doesn’t prevent the next incident—only strong, reliable controls do. By quickly assessing the relationship between risk and control strength, leaders can move beyond hindsight to implement targeted improvements that reduce the likelihood and severity of future events.
Why It Matters for Safety Performance
Classifying incidents by both actual and potential outcomes helps organizations target hazards with the greatest potential for harm, not just those that caused harm in the past. When an SIF or PSIF is identified, the next step is to examine the controls: strong controls mean you were good, weak controls mean you were lucky. And as the saying goes, “Luck is not a safety strategy.”
AUTHOR BIO:-
Cary comes to the SafetyStratus team as the Vice President of Operations with almost 30 years of experience in several different industries. He began his career in the United States Navy’s nuclear power program. From there he transitioned into the public sector as an Environmental, Health & Safety Manager in the utility industry. After almost thirteen years, he transitioned into the construction sector as a Safety Director at a large, international construction company. Most recently he held the position of Manager of Professional Services at a safety software company, overseeing the customer success, implementation, and process consulting aspects of the services team.
At SafetyStratus, he is focused on helping achieve the company’s vision of “Saving lives and the environment by successfully integrating knowledgeable people, sustainable processes, and unparalleled technology”.s vision of “Saving lives and the environment by successfully integrating knowledgeable people, sustainable processes, and unparalleled technology”.
