Association for Behavior Analysis International

The Association for Behavior Analysis International® (ABAI) is a nonprofit membership organization with the mission to contribute to the well-being of society by developing, enhancing, and supporting the growth and vitality of the science of behavior analysis through research, education, and practice.

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41st Annual Convention; San Antonio, TX; 2015

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Paper Session #136
Behavior-Based Safety Applications in Northern Italy
Sunday, May 24, 2015
9:00 AM–9:50 AM
202AB (CC)
Area: OBM
Keyword(s): Behavior, Safety
Chair: Fabio Tosolin (A.A.R.B.A.)
 

The Hanging Fruit of Behavioral Safety Applications: Improving the Precision of Outputs Through a Behavior-Based Quality Process

Domain: Applied Research
Maria Gatti (A.A.R.B.A.), Alessandro Valdina (A.A.R.B.A.), FABIO TOSOLIN (A.A.R.B.A.), Paola Silva (A.A.R.B.A.), Morgan Aleotti (A.A.R.B.A.)
 
Abstract:

Several companies discover the potential of behavioral technologies thanks to the application of behavioral safety. Those companies start asking to spread the mission of their behavior-based safety process to other business results, such as Environment's ones and Qualitys ones that are usually managed by the same department, i.e. by the same people. The protocol to design the behavior-based quality process follow the same steps of the safety one: assessment, pinpointing, measurement rules and tools definition, consequence planning, training and coaching of observers and leaders, baseline registration, goal-setting and follow up. The paper presents the preliminary results obtained in couple of applications in facilities of north-eastern Italy. One belongs to a company in the manufacturing and installation of architectural envelopes and interior systems. The other is a plastic maker with 55 operators that has to deal with contaminations of the products in the bags sent to final client: the pinpointing highlighted that these unwanted results (29 non conformances reported by clients in 18 months) are due to inaccurate behaviors. The company decided to train and to reward a group of 19 employees (both workers and leaders) to observe the accurate behaviors with a checklist on a daily basis, to give mostly positive - feedback to the colleagues observed, and to analyze the cause of the eventual inaccurate behaviors. The target behaviors are the following ones 1. Cleaning the floor with vacuum cleaner or broom-pallet; 2. Cleaning cutters, vibrating screen centrifuges and silos crevices with compressed air; 3. Checking the granule and the presence of "chains"; 4. Closing the hoppers; 5. Putting in order the vacuum cleaner after its use. The last behavior is the most important for removing the aversive contingencies (i.e. looking for the vacuum cleaner) that reduces the likelihood of the first behavior. The behavior based quality-safety process aims to cut a 30% of costumer disputes and 50% of the severity index in 2 years: after a 3 weeks baseline, during the first month of observation and feedback, some of the above quality behaviors increased even without having been explicitly targeted with goal-setting and rewards in this first part of the project (i.e. the leadership of the company preferred to focus goals and reward on behavior related the injury severity/frequency rather than quality ones).

 
The First Italian Research On The Efficacy of a B-BS Process in Healthcare Sector
Domain: Applied Research
FABIO TOSOLIN (A.A.R.B.A.), Maria Gatti (A.A.R.B.A.), Paola Silva (A.A.R.B.A.), Alessandro Valdina (A.A.R.B.A.)
 
Abstract: The effectiveness of a B-BS process in workplaces is proven by many experiments, both in Italy and in the rest of the world, but in our country the protocol has never been applied and tested in the healthcare sector. For this reason the Italian National Insurance Company (INAIL) has financed AARBA to carry on an experimental research in 2 medical centers of excellence in the north of Italy: the Dentistry Department of the Galeazzi Orthopedic Institute in Milan and the Department of Hospitalization and Operating Rooms of the Oncological Reference Center (CRO) in Aviano. During the trial, contingent consequences to safe/at risk behaviors of doctors, dentists, hygienists, nurses and health workers used were: feedback (saying to the observed person the outcome of the measurement and describing him or the avoided or the occurred risks), verbal reinforcers (congratulating observed workers for the safe behaviors) and symbolic reinforcers (token economy to get some prizes). In addition, extinction schedules were used for some low risk behaviors observed. Institute 1 - After 5 weeks of treatment based on feedback and verbal reinforcers delivered on a daily basis by researchers to the workers of the Institute 1, the frequency of all the a17 behaviors treated has increased. (Chart 1) Statistical analysis carried out with the Test C to rule out that the performance of this time series was due to chance. Institute 2 - The researchers wanted to prove that using the token economy on safe behaviors coupled with the feedback, it’s possible to reach higher levels of safe behaviors rather than using only the token economy on safe behaviors, the token economy on unsafe behaviors and the token economy coupled with the feedback on unsafe behaviors. After 3 weeks of treatment based on token economy for safe (green token) and unsafe (red token) behaviors, linked or not with the feedback, delivered on a daily basis by researchers and workers themselves to the workers in the Institute 2, the frequency of the 3 observed behaviors has increased more in the condition token+feedback on safe behavior. The B-BS process in the Institute 2 is ongoing, to prove that using the B-BS process in the health system is possible to reduce the number of accidents and incidents in the workplaces and not only to increase the number of safe behaviors. Results will be available for the conference.
 
Keyword(s): Behavior, Safety
 

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