Left to Right: Dirk Kumashiro (ITS), Tinesh Tailor (ITS), Kelly Gallagher (ITS), Mary Crabtree (EHS), John Rawlings (ITS), Mimi Bennett (ITS) and Pete Reinhardt (EHS)

The following was reprinted from January 2005 The HUB, the UNC ITS newsletter

John Rawlings is a manager in Information Technology Services at UNC-Chapel Hill. His team supports Environment, Health & Safety (EHS), a very diverse department involved in such activities as biological, chemical, laboratory, and radiation safety; fire prevention; environmental affairs; and workers' compensation. Mary Crabtree, Workplace Safety Manager at EHS and the department's IT liaison, credits ITS with having developed a powerful, flexible application (client server and Web) that supports most of the department's activities. The system goes by the name HASMIS (Health and Safety Management Information System).

"HASMIS helps us monitor compliance with OSHA, EPA, JCAHO, State, and miscellaneous regulations," says Crabtree. "Things like inspections, medical surveillance (job-required physical, health care environments, etc.), radioactive and chemical waste pickup, radiation and chemical inventories, safety training—it's a long list."

HASMIS was developed in the early 1990s. At the time, EHS either kept manual records or had to write its own database programs. When this approach was less than satisfactory, the department considered various vendors' programs, but none of them adequately addressed workers' compensation. "Now it's all integrated," says Crabtree. "Anyone in the office can review any of the modules, and there are checks and balances. If someone tries to log in to request a waste pickup, for example, and we don't have them in our database, they have to be added to the system before we pick up the waste. We can't be everywhere, so this is a big help." The program is continuously being expanded; current modules in development include a Web-based lab safety plan and an ergonomic self-evaluation.

"No other university has this," says Crabtree. "We can run both defined and customizable reports through Oracle VB/Crystal, looking at 2 or up to 20 modules. It's much more powerful than just a manual search."

So pleased was Crabtree with the application that she nominated it for an award at EHS's national professional organization, the Campus Safety and Health and Environmental Management Association (CSHEMA). CSHEMA is a division of the National Safety Council and counts as members major universities in the U.S., Canada, and several other countries. The software earned UNC-CH the Unique or Innovative Program award. "It's one of CSHEMA's higher awards," says Crabtree. "It's pretty exciting when the CEO of the National Safety Council presents it!"

"HASMIS has had a number of hands in its writing," says John Rawlings, "but it was re-written several years ago (VB 6 and Oracle), and it has grown and expanded into new EHS functions and the Web since then. What I tell anyone who will listen is that these guys (Dirk Kumashiro, Kelly Gallagher, and Tinesh Tailor, with Group Leader Mimi Bennett) did all the work; they deserve the credit."