You arrive on scene to a slip and fall incident clicking your favorite pen and carrying a notepad under your arm.
Although you’re aware innovative incident management solutions exist, you’ve always preferred your method. It “gets the job done.”
While on scene, you discover a patron has slipped near one of your high traffic concession areas and has a broken ankle.
After quickly jotting down their statement, you begin interviewing witnesses to the incident – the stories don’t add up. It appears the injured has a different account of what took place than your eye-witnesses.
Who do you believe? Who will the court believe? What measures can you take with handwritten notes to ensure your records match what really happened, and that will hold up in a court of law?
Fact: Pen and paper no longer gets the job done. Keep reading so we can give you the insight on why incident management solutions are the safe way to keep your incidents honest.
Are you ready for Proactive Operations?
Incident Management Solutions Provide Consistency in Chaos
As a stadium manager you must have the ability to document consistent digital records of all important incidents occurring at your venue. Having the correct information available when you need it is a big deal. But liability defense is an even bigger deal!
Deploying incident reporting tools allows your team to keep the integrity of your data up to the high standards you require while simultaneously creating a positive customer experience.
There’s no other way to accomplish full and consistent incident records. One missed piece of information can change the entire outcome.
Now is the time to say farewell to poor methods of “recording” incident details with pen and paper, and replace them with incident management solutions that’ll keep your operation protected from onset of liability issues.
4 Tools for Peace of Mind
Here are four strategic solutions you can put into action now to keep your incidents honest and give you peace of mind in knowing everything will go according to plan.
- An incident management system will allow your team to store all the important incident details associated with acts of terrorism, unruly patrons and slip and fall cases.
- The digital repository centralizes all the data for you. In two months or six years, you can rest assured knowing every detail of any incident will remain how you left it.
- One-click reporting gives you the hard facts, trends and risk data for making important operational decisions in the moment and after. When you have your day in court, be ready with the details, examples and the truth.
- Mobile devices – such as phones and tablets – give you the opportunity to take mobile incident reporting to a new level of efficiency and effectiveness. Most importantly, these mobile devices force your incidents to be honest by capturing and storing (for the long term) digital witness statements, signatures, audio and video. (Pro tip: the price of mobile devices run far less than that of radios. Arm your entire staff with mobile devices for the price of a few radios and watch the validity of your incident data drastically increase.)
Do you see how these solutions play a role in the veracity of your incident details? You can professionally use your solutions to ensure the completeness of your data at any given moment.
An Astute Lesson in Honesty and Liability Defense
Circling back to the slip and fall incident mentioned above, let’s look at the result with incident tracking solutions in place.
Once your operator has dispatched the incident to need-to-know teammates, you quickly arrive on scene. Only this time, you have your mobile incident reporting tablet ready.
You immediately begin documenting the full details of the incident from the perspective of the injured. Their story appears legitimate. They continue to assure you that they’ve slipped on a small wet spot in your high traffic concession area.
You don’t expect to locate the exact spill due to high traffic volume – so you believe their story.
But then something remarkable happens…
You move on to question witnesses of the incident using your tablet, and the injured patron changes their story. After realizing they won’t be able to pass the blame to your venue and seeing how comprehensive your incident reporting is, they adjust their version of the occurrence to match that of your key witnesses.
Here’s what really happened: They’ve had one too many adult beverages – but wanted more – which caused them to attempt their fate by jumping over a rail to beat the traffic to the beer line. This senseless act resulted in catching their foot on the rail and breaking an ankle as they hit the floor.
You’ve kept your incidents (and patrons) honest, and your boss from signing a lawsuit settlement check.
“Getting the Job Done” the Right Way
OK. You’ve saved your operation from dishing out a check this time, but what can you do to increase efficiency and effectiveness all the time? We’re glad you asked.
Here are three best practices you can put into action today to truly “get the job done.”
- Provide your risk management team with the ability to lock incident details after reviewing them. This maintains the integrity of information.
- Recording audio and video incident details, and witness statements is a great benefit of mobile incident reporting. But you can do more. Requiring a digital signature for each witness statement creates that accountability sometimes needed to get to the truth.
- One of your major – and at times most challenging – goals as a stadium manager is to enhance the guest experience. Protect your guests and your bottom line. Document photos, driver licenses, and identifying marks of associated persons like the patron mentioned in the slip and fall incident in a database for long-term liability protection.
With solutions and best practices in place, you can find other ways to keep your operation in check and always improving.
Nothing Gets Overlooked
Deceit and inaccurate documentation doesn’t hold up well in the courtroom. Your facts do.
Properly documenting all information lets you take control of the total operation so nothing gets overlooked.
From the guest experience to handling incidents in real time, incident reporting solutions allow you to fully analyze what’s happening. Incident reports, pictures of unruly patrons, eye-witness video, and digital signatures are a big part in your ability to defend your venue against liability…now and in the future.
It’s one more way to achieve peace of mind.
Utilizing the documenting power of your incident management solutions, you have evidence that shows your stadium quickly managed the slip and fall, and that all the stories identically add up – even if the injured patron happens to attempt opening a legal suit several years later.
Over to You
Limit your risk exposure with dependable and secure incident reporting solutions.
Get all the information you need at the time of incident to ensure no one’s memory plays a role in the outcome of a lawsuit.
Memories are unreliable, handwritten notes are inconsistent and you’d prefer peace of mind anyway.
