STER - the computer system supporting safety and health management STER is a product of the Polish National Strategic Programme "Safety and Protection of Man in the Working Environment". STER was developed in the Central Institute for Labour Protection in 1997 and now it is systematically upgraded in step with OSH technical progress, changes in  OSH – related legislation and special user needs.

The STER System consists of five modules, supporting various activities in the field of occupational safety and health management:

The STER system takes into account the requirements of the Polish up-dated Labour Code allowing:

conducting registration of hazards (in conformity with the Ordinance of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of July 9, 1996 on studying and measuring harmful agents in the working environment), supporting detailed measurement data processing (based on current standards and other related documents), · making data sheets of the measurement results of most of the harmful agents in the working environment (in conformity with the aforementioned Ordinance), occupational risk assessment at  workstands, creating obligatory documents (reports on working conditions, technical and medical preven-tion, etc.), documenting activities of technical, medical and organisational prevention, registering occupational accidents and diseases, collecting data necessary for documenting post-accident investigations and creating related obligatory documents, supporting management of  employee data related to OSH benefits, supporting selection of personal protective equipment.

Assessment of hazards and occupational risk is conducted on the basis of Thresh-old Limit Values (TLV) of harmful agents in the working environment covered by the system in force in Poland.

The system allows the employers and the employees of safety and health services and measurement laboratories:

to conduct documentation of occupational hazards, to assess the risk resulting from them to develop and document a programme of action in the field of prophylactics and limitation or elimination of occupational hazards.

On the basis of the data loaded to the STER system it is possible to elaborate and print, among other things, the following documents:

a data sheet of safety and health protection at the work stand data sheets of the results of harmful agents measurements a plan for measuring agents at workstands, a report on working conditions, a breakdown of workstands at which permissible values have been exceeded, a breakdown of workstands with risk categories, a list of harmful agents in the company, a list of workstands at which employees receive benefits, a breakdown of activities reducing risk, a list of OSH benefits for individual employees, a history of hazards an employee has been exposed to during the entire duration of employment, obligatory post-accident documents.

The system is equipped with a module which helps to generate and print statistical data sheets of occupational accidents and on occupational diseases in an enterprise. A list of standards in force in Poland and a list of personal protective equipment with the Institute's certificate are built into the system.

The STER system is also integrated with two other computer programs supporting health and safety management – a Chemical Safety Data Sheets computer database - and an electronic guide – INFOCHRON CE – with data on Personal Protective Equipment.

The STER system  works in the Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP environment.
Users of the system will be able to receive constantly updated databases as knowledge, legislation and the certification process develop.

All information about the STER system can be obtained at the Central Institute for Labour Protection, Warsaw, Poland (http://www.ciop.pl, e-mail: masuc@ciop.pl).