Safe Workplace and Safety News

A new training video from OSHA shows the difference between respirators and face masks. It also discusses how a face mask is used to prevent the spread of flu. This video is available on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovSLAuY8ib8

Labels: hospital safety, Industrial Health, PPE, Safety Training, safety videos

The nation’s first standard to protect workers from the spread of airborne diseases was approved Monday by California’s Office of Administrative Law and filed with the Secretary of State. It is known as the Aerosol Transmissible Disease (ATD) standard. It is designed to protect workers in healthcare and related industries from the spread of diseases such as tuberculosis, measles, influenza, and other pathogens spread by coughing and sneezing. The standard becomes effective on August 5.

“This first in the nation standard is a milestone in workplace safety,” said Department of Industrial Relations Director John C. Duncan. “It is designed to protect employees who are likely to come in contact with transmittable diseases which is especially significant due to recent events such as the H1N1 swine flu outbreak. I applaud the efforts of our Cal/OSHA program for once again being on the leading edge of worker safety.”

The new ATD standard will be added to the California Code of Regulations as Title 8, section 5199, and will cover health care and related workplaces that typically treat, diagnose, or house individuals who may be ill such as hospitals, clinics, nursing care facilities, correctional facilities, and homeless shelters. It will also cover emergency responders, who often are the first point of contact of the health care system with patients who can transmit disease.

Designed to protect workers with duties that increase their risk of exposure to infectious diseases, the ATD standard requires health care employees and others at increased risk to develop exposure control procedures and train employees to follow them. Employees must be made part of the process by involving them in the periodic review and assessment of these procedures. Basic exposure precautions such as source control, hand hygiene, and cleaning and decontamination procedures are a fundamental part of the standard.

Currently there are no specific requirements outlining the responsibilities for employers to address aerosol transmissible diseases as a workplace safety hazard for their employees.

“The ATD standard provides guidance on how to protect employees from exposure to diseases that are well known, like TB, and those that are novel, like what we have just experienced with the recent appearance of H1N1 flu,” said Cal/OSHA Chief Len Welsh. “This standard provides a set of safety practices and precautions tailored to the level of healthcare-related service provided by the employers covered, so they can respond in an organized and intelligent fashion to situations ranging from day-to-day management of a potentially infectious patient to emergency surges that may be brought on by a pandemic. The standard is designed not only to protect healthcare workers, but the functionality of the healthcare system itself, since the system cannot run without them. ”

Also accompanying the ATD standard is the Zoonotic Disease standard, which addresses employees working around animals where many infectious diseases originate. The standard requires employers to control workplace exposures to infectious diseases in animals such as Hantavirus, monkey pox, anthrax, avian influenza, and bovine tuberculosis.

For more information about the ATD and Zoonotic Disease standard visit or web site at www.dir.ca.gov/DOSH.

Labels: hospital safety, HSE, Industrial Health

Employers and employees in the healthcare industry stand to benefit from the new sonography and updated surgical modules featured in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) Hospital eTool, posted to OSHA's Web site last Friday.

OSHA's eTools are stand-alone, Web-based training tools on occupational safety and health topics. OSHA developed these eTool modules with input from the following Alliance Program participants: Society of Diagnostic Medical Sonography, Association of Occupational Health Professionals, American Association of Occupational Health Nurses, Laser Institute of America, American Biological Safety Association, Association of periOperative Registered Nurses, and the Joint Commission and Joint Commission Resources.

"These new and updated modules are examples of the many resources developed through our Alliances that address common hazards in the healthcare industry," said Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Edwin G. Foulke, Jr. "We will continue our mission of providing useful information to ensure employees remain safe and healthy while on the job."

Employees face many occupational safety and health hazards while working in a hospital. OSHA originally developed the Hospital eTool with modules describing common hazards and possible solutions for tasks performed in administration, central supply, clinical services, dietary, emergency, engineering, heliport operations, housekeeping, laboratories, laundry, pharmacy, the intensive care unit and the surgical suite.

The sonography module provides guidance on how sonographers—medial professionals who use high frequency ultrasound to create diagnostic images—can reduce their risk of musculoskeletal disorders. The surgical module now features updated information on bloodborne pathogens, waste anesthetic gases, laser safety, and other topics related to workplace safety and health in surgical suites.

Labels: hospital safety, workplace safety