Workplace accidents suffered by individuals are a new focus of the United States Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which has re-worked reporting guidelines for work-related hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye, as well as death.

The rule, which also updates the list of employers partially exempt from OSHA record-keeping requirements, will go into effect Jan. 1, 2015 and is an outgrowth of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2013 National Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries.

"Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 4,405 workers were killed on the job in 2013. We can and must do more to keep America's workers safe and healthy," said U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez in an agency news release. "Workplace injuries and fatalities are absolutely preventable, and these new requirements will help OSHA focus its resources and hold employers accountable for preventing them."

Under the revised regulations, employers will be required to notify OSHA of work-related fatalities within eight hours and work-related injuries and hospital visits within 24 hours.

OSHA rules previously compelled an employer to report only work-related fatalities and in-patient hospitalizations of three or more employees -- and reports of single hospitalizations, amputations or loss of an eye were not even required.

Now, all employers covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Act, even those exempt from maintaining injury and illness records, must comply with OSHA's new severe injury and illness reporting requirements.

"Hospitalizations and amputations are sentinel events, indicating that serious hazards are likely to be present at a workplace and that an intervention is warranted to protect the other workers at the establishment," said Dr. David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health.

The agency has as well updated the list of industries that are exempt from being required to maintain routine injury and illness records, due to relatively low occupational injury and illness rates in those particular sectors.

Based on updated injury and illness data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the new set of rules maintains the exemption for any employer with 10 or fewer employees, regardless of their industry classification, from the requirement to routinely keep records of worker injuries and illnesses.