Type of occurrence classification system (TOOCS) 3rd Edition

The Type of Occurrence Classification System (TOOCS) was first developed to provide a comprehensive and nationally consistent system of classifying work-related injuries and diseases across various workers compensation claims systems. 

The TOOCS has developed over time and expanded to be the primary work-related injury and disease incident classification system in Australia. TOOCS supports the coding of incidents across various workers compensation systems and the production of national work health and safety statistics including: 

• National Data Set for Compensation-based Statistics (NDS) – see Workers' compensation data.
• Traumatic Injury Fatalities Database (TIF) – see Work-related fatalities data. 

The TOOCS contains four hierarchical classifications structures which together describe the type of injury or disease sustained by the worker and the way in which it was inflicted: 

• Nature of Injury or Disease Classification
• Bodily Location of Injury or Disease Classification
• Mechanism of Incident Classification, and
• Agency of Injury or Disease Classification.

These structures capture:

• The nature of the most serious injury or disease.
• The bodily location affected by the most serious injury or disease.
• The mechanism or overall action, exposure or event that best describes the circumstances that resulted in the most serious injury or disease.
• The agency, which codes both:
  • Breakdown agency:  the object, substance or circumstance that was principally involved in, or most closely associated with, the point at which things started to go wrong and which ultimately led to the most serious injury or disease.
  • Agency: the object, substance or circumstance directly involved in inflicting the injury or disease.
    The TOOCS coding manual provides guidance on the classification of Australian work-related injuries and diseases using the current version of the TOOCS, that is, TOOCS Edition 3 revision 2 (TOOCS3.2).