Opinion on Good Catch vs Near Miss
Does your company lump good catches and near misses as the same classification? Or do you have it as 2 separate definitions? And why?
To me they are different, but I am seeing organizations are stopping using the word near miss.
Comments (11)

It depends on what you define as a "good catch"? In general, a "near miss" is a potential hazard or incident in which no property was damaged and no personal injury/illness was sustained, but where, given a slight shift in time or position, damage or injury/illness easily could have occurred.

We divide our safety reports into three categories: Safety Observation, Near Miss and Accident. Safety Observation is an issue that if gone uncorrected can eventually result in an injury, near miss is a condition that could result immediately result in injury (had someone been in the right place), accident is an injury.

Proactive Vs. Reactive
Proactive is a good catch before something happens
Near miss is something that has already happened
Both take engagement to get them reported and both can be used to guide your safety programs. I believe both can be effective in their own rights!

We record all , I agree with what everyone is saying but we changed our accident to incident.
This changed in the Public safety world several years ago
(An Accident is an Inappropriate term due to it happened without apparent chance or cause
Rather it happened do to negligence, not paying attention to warning signs, Disregard policy's or procedures). (SOP OR SOG)
The other thing we do is provide for the reporting of Praise observations. Looking for any opportunity to refer to safety in a positive light!
We use near hit instead of near miss. Doesn’t near miss mean a hit? It nearly misses but that signifies it hit and nearly misses. Just a thought.
The answer depends on how you use the information. Let’s start with some context near misses do not provide a clear indication of the state of an organization’s safety management system. If an organization has an increase in near miss reporting, it may simply mean that workers are becoming more observant and vigilant. However, others argue that near misses, while still events with consequences, can be leading indicators for major incidents resulting in injuries.
Consequently, If the intent is to treat near misses as ‘actual incidents’, especially when it comes to mandatory reporting, the near miss itself can be seen as an event with negative consequences and considered more of a lagging indicator. If the intent of tracking near misses is to find weaknesses in a safety management system and improve organizational safety performance, then near misses become more leading in nature. On the other hand, good catch could be synonymous to good practice which are considered to be positive or proactive actions.

Going back to 1976 when I first started in the "game" I have never heard of "Good Catches?" What is your definition.
Even way back then we knew what Lagging and Leading Indicators were or at the least the concept. On my very first day at a very large foundry post college, in 1976, in Management Orientation I was handed a DuPont STOP workbook and we got two days of training in BBS. I found myself as a Foundry Line Supervisor 6 weeks later. These are not new concepts.
We used the words "Proactive/Reactive" Metrics instead of "Leading/Lagging".
We also spent time on Safety Metrics which I still use all these years later:
Proactive:
1. Unsafe Conditions. Those reported items that are unhealth or unsafe that exist in the environment that have not yet resulted in an "incident." usually thought of as an unsafe condition, but if you consider human neglect or lack of oversight could be unsafe act too.
2. Near Miss: Where and incident usually caused by unsafe behavior occurred but luck was on our side and there was no actual injury.
3. Neat Serious: The same as a Near Miss with the exception the injury could have been serious resulting in a Lost Time Injury or Worse. In our system a Near Serious required a formal written Accident Report just like any Recordable.
Reactive:
4. First Aid Case: An actual injury or condition has occurred that resulted in First Aid resulting in any medical care that did not rise to the level of an OSHA Recordable (as defined by OSHA 1904). Sometimes these could be treated like "Serious Near Misses" depending on circumstances.
5. OSHA Recordables: Injuries or health conditions that had actual medical care above First Aid as defined by OSHA 1904. Would become primary metric about 2000.
6. Lost Times: An OSHA Recordable in which the employee missed at least one full shift of work as defined by 1904. In the old days this was out primary metric!
7. Fatalities: We do not like to talk about that one! Thank God, I never had one!