The DART rate (Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred) is a widely recognized safety metric. It serves as a performance indicator for workplace health and safety programs by reflecting the most severe outcomes of occupational injuries and illnesses. Understanding the DART rate provides organizations with a standardized way to measure the impact of incidents that cause employees to miss work or have their duties changed. Safety professionals use this metric to assess the effectiveness of preventive measures and the overall health of a safety culture.
Defining DART and Its Regulatory Purpose
The Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred (DART) rate is a specific measure used to track the severity of workplace incidents and is mandated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Compliance with OSHA’s recordkeeping requirements (29 CFR 1904) necessitates that companies accurately log all work-related injuries and illnesses that result in these specific outcomes. This tracking allows for regulatory oversight and provides standardized data across different industries for comparison.
Companies track the DART metric because it directly correlates with the human and financial costs associated with workplace injuries. A high DART rate indicates that incidents are severe enough to disrupt normal work operations, often leading to increased workers’ compensation claims and lost productivity. The metric focuses on incidents with a significant impact on an employee’s ability to perform their job, moving beyond simply counting minor occurrences.
Maintaining a low DART rate demonstrates effective safety management and a strong commitment to employee protection. It suggests that an organization’s hazard control measures are successfully preventing the most serious types of injuries. The metric acts as a measure of proactive safety investment, translating into better operational continuity and improved employee well-being.
The Three Components of a DART Incident
Days Away from Work
The “Days Away” component is triggered when a work-related injury or illness causes an employee to miss one or more full calendar days of work. This time loss begins the day after the injury occurred and continues until the employee returns to work. Tracking this outcome quantifies the total economic and operational disruption caused by the most serious types of incidents.
OSHA requires employers to record the exact number of days the employee was unable to work, up to a maximum of 180 days. This category represents the highest level of severity within the DART calculation, as the employee is completely removed from their normal duties. The number of lost workdays provides a clear, quantitative measure of an injury’s impact on the workforce.
Restricted Work Activity
An incident qualifies as “Restricted Work Activity” when the injured employee returns to work but cannot perform all of their routine job functions due to the injury or illness. This restriction may involve limiting the amount of time spent on certain tasks or prohibiting specific activities entirely. The employee must be unable to perform a routine function they would have performed at least once a week prior to the injury.
This outcome is distinct from days away because the employee remains productive, albeit in a limited capacity. Tracking restricted days helps companies identify injuries that affect mobility or strength but do not result in a complete loss of work time.
Job Transfer
The “Job Transfer” component applies when an employee is temporarily or permanently moved to a different job following an injury or illness. This reassignment must be a direct result of a work-related incident and is intended to accommodate the employee’s physical limitations during recovery. The new position must be one the employee was not originally assigned to.
Recording job transfers allows safety managers to evaluate how often injuries necessitate significant organizational adjustments to maintain compliance and support recovery. The transfer is counted as a DART incident even if the employee is only moved for a single day.
Calculating the DART Rate
The DART rate is calculated using a standardized formula designed to normalize incident data, allowing for meaningful comparison between companies of varying sizes. The formula scales the total number of DART incidents against the total number of hours worked by all employees during a specific period. The calculation is: DART Rate = (Total DART Incidents $\times$ 200,000) / Total Employee Hours Worked.
The “Total DART Incidents” variable includes the sum of all recordable cases resulting in days away, restricted work activity, or a job transfer. This raw number is multiplied by the constant factor of 200,000 to standardize the rate. This constant represents 100 full-time employees working 40 hours per week for 50 weeks, totaling 200,000 labor hours.
Scaling the incident count to this 200,000-hour benchmark allows the resulting rate to be interpreted as the number of DART incidents expected per 100 full-time workers. This standardization is crucial because it allows for meaningful comparison of safety performance between companies of vastly different sizes, ensuring the metric reflects exposure hours.
To illustrate this calculation, consider a company that recorded eight DART incidents over a year where its employees logged 450,000 total hours. The calculation is structured as (8 $\times$ 200,000) / 450,000, resulting in a DART rate of approximately 3.56.
A DART rate of 3.56 indicates that for every 100 full-time employees, 3.56 incidents resulting in lost time or modified duty occurred during the year. This numerical result provides an actionable data point for safety management teams to benchmark against industry averages and internal historical data. The focus remains on the severity of the outcome.
The accuracy of the DART rate relies entirely on precise recordkeeping of both the incident outcomes and the total labor hours. Errors in tracking restricted days or total hours worked can significantly skew the final metric. Consistent data collection throughout the reporting period is necessary for the rate to be a reliable measure of occupational safety performance.
DART vs. Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR)
Safety professionals typically track both the DART rate and the Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) because they measure distinct aspects of workplace safety performance. The fundamental difference lies in the scope of incidents included: TRIR is a measure of incident frequency, encompassing all OSHA-recordable injuries and illnesses.
The TRIR calculation includes every incident requiring medical treatment beyond first aid, regardless of whether the employee missed work or had modified duties. TRIR accounts for minor injuries, such as stitches or non-severe fractures, that require a doctor’s visit but do not result in lost time. The inclusion of these less severe events makes TRIR a broader indicator of overall safety activity and program reach.
The DART rate, conversely, is a measure of incident severity, focusing exclusively on the subset of recordable incidents that lead to days away, restricted work, or job transfer. An injury must have a measurable impact on the employee’s ability to perform regular duties to qualify for the DART metric. Because DART incidents are a component of the larger TRIR figure, the DART rate will always be lower than the TRIR for any given period.
Organizations track both metrics because they offer complementary insights into safety performance. A low TRIR suggests that the frequency of all injuries is well-controlled, indicating good overall hazard identification. However, a low TRIR paired with a relatively high DART rate signals a problem with the severity of the injuries that are occurring. This points to a need for better controls for high-risk tasks.
The financial and human costs associated with DART incidents are significantly higher than those included only in the TRIR. While TRIR shows the volume of incidents, DART highlights the outcomes that carry the most significant consequences for the business and the employee.
Practical Strategies for Reducing Your DART Rate
Reducing the DART rate requires shifting focus toward controlling the potential severity of workplace hazards, rather than merely reducing the frequency of all incidents. A primary strategy involves enhancing hazard identification and risk assessments, specifically targeting tasks known to cause severe injuries. Implementing engineering controls, such as machine guarding or ventilation systems, is a more effective preventative measure than relying solely on administrative controls or personal protective equipment.
Implement Early Intervention and Return-to-Work Programs
Proactive injury management is a significant factor in minimizing the “Days Away” component of the rate. Companies should invest in comprehensive early intervention and return-to-work programs designed to get the employee back to productive work quickly and safely. Providing restricted duty assignments helps prevent the accumulation of lost time days while the employee recovers.
Focus Training on High-Risk Tasks
Improved training must be specific, focusing on the high-risk tasks that have historically led to severe outcomes. Training should emphasize correct body mechanics, proper equipment use, and immediate reporting of near-misses that had the potential for serious injury. Reinforcing safe work practices helps build a culture where employees are less likely to sustain an injury that necessitates modified work or time off.