Prof. Sharon Newman

Professor Sharon Newnam is the Head of School, Psychology and Counselling at the Queensland University of Technology. Sharon has published widely in the area of workplace safety from a systems-thinking perspective and has applied this knowledge to improve safety across industries, including transportation and healthcare. Sharon is a prolific author, is an Associate Editor of the leading safety journal Safety Science, and an international member on a Transportation Research Board committee, which is a division of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine.

Workplace tasks continue to cause a significant number of injuries within Australian, despite a substantial investment in equipment, training and workspace design. The STIR App has been developed to help OHS practitioners investigate why the risk controls for workplace tasks failed to prevent an injury to staff, and then identify effective strategies to prevent future similar injuries. The STIR App is based on best practice for incident investigation and systems thinking. This presentation will provide an overview of the development of the STIR App, case study applications, and practitioner reflections on the benefits of using a systems thinking approach to investigating workplace injuries.