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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

Ethical issues in the handling of bloodborne pathogens: evaluating the Occupational Safety & Health Administration Bloodborne Pathogen Standard.

The Occupational Safety & Health Administration Bloodborne Pathogen Standard is designed to help provide protection from contamination in the workplace. Healthcare professionals must evaluate the standard and the behaviors mandated therein, according to the basic professional ethical principles of professional autonomy, beneficence, and cost-benefit considerations. The patient's wellbeing provides the focus for making such an assessment.

Beneficence↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Integrating the Occupational Safety & Health Administration mandates on bloodborne pathogens in the practice setting.

The Occupational Safety & Health Administration Bloodborne Pathogen Standard was developed to reduce the risk of exposure of healthcare workers to hepatitis B and C, human immunodeficiency virus, and other bloodborne pathogens. This can only be achieved if all healthcare workers continue to work to understand, adhere to, and enforce this mandate. The requirements of the Occupational Safety & Health Administration Standard will be discussed, including an exposure control plan, engineering and work practice controls, training, and hepatitis B vaccination. The risk to healthcare workers will be discussed in terms of the relevant pathogens, the extent of contamination, the risks associated with different occupations, and transmissibility. Finally, assessment and management of actual exposure incidents, as mandated by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration Standard, will be described.

Blood-Borne Pathogens↗
PubMed1996

Occupational safety & health administration. Building partnerships.

1. The Office of Occupational Health Nursing, within the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA), actively advocates for workers and occupational health nurses. 2. Although an enforcement agency by law, OSHA has and is in the process of building bridges to the regulated community through its cooperative development of programs intended to enhance employer efforts for improving and maintaining employee health and workplace safety. 3. OSHA's service of consultation is geared toward the small employer seeking assistance in the recognition and correction of workplace hazards, while improving worksite health and safety programs. Voluntary Protection Programs participation, the recognition of exemplary larger employers, often leads to improvements in employee safety motivation while improving product quality, worker productivity, and corporate profits. 4. OSHA produces a wealth of publications, pamphlets, audiovisual, computer access programs and other documents designed to ease compliance while providing a foundation to the understanding of workplace health and safety.

Humans↗
PubMed2001

Evaluating sharps safety devices: meeting OSHA's intent. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) revised the Bloodborne Pathogen Standard and, on July 17, 2001, began enforcing the use of appropriate and effective sharps devices with engineered sharps-injury protection. OSHA requires employers to maintain a sharps-injury log that records, among other items, the type and brand of contaminated sharps device involved in each injury. Federal OSHA does not require needlestick injury rates to be calculated by brand or type of device. A sufficient sample size to show a valid comparison of safety devices, based on injury rates, is rarely feasible in a single facility outside of a formal research trial. Thus, calculations of injury rates should not be used by employers for product evaluations to compare the effectiveness of safety devices. This article provides examples of sample-size requirements for statistically valid comparisons, ranging from 100,000 to 4.5 million of each device, depending on study design, and expected reductions in needlestick injury rates.

Blood-Borne Pathogens↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The impact of the Occupational Safety & Health Administration regulations on management decision-making strategies.

Employee exposure to bloodborne pathogens is a potentially devastating event, for the institution and the employee. Managers, who have responsibilities to both the institution and the employee, can play a key role. Managers need to be thoroughly familiar with the Occupational Safety & Health Administration standard and their institution's exposure control plan. They must provide training to ensure compliance, initiate disciplinary measures for non-compliant employees, and identify potentially dangerous situations. In the event of an exposure, they must provide support to the employee. This article will describe the Occupational Safety & Health Administration standard and exposure control plan in detail, and will discuss the ways in which managers can ensure that the regulations are met and that employees are protected.

Blood-Borne Pathogens↗
PubMed1994

Implications of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's bloodborne pathogen standard for the occupational health professional.

On December 6, 1991. The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) issued its final regulation concerning occupational exposure to bloodborne pathogens (29 CFR 1910.1030). OSHA has determined that workers in a variety of settings face a significant health risk as the result of occupational exposure to blood and other body fluids. The pathogens that are of the most concern include human immunodeficiency type 1 (HIV) and hepatitis B virus (HBV). OSHA concludes that the hazard can be minimized via engineering and work practice controls, personal protective equipment, HBV vaccination, training and education, and appropriate use of signs and labels. Occupational health professionals, including physicians, nurses, industrial hygienists, and safety officers, are faced with the challenge of writing and periodically updating exposure control plans that are unique to their settings, as well as advising colleagues in other settings. They are charged with identifying the appropriate at-risk groups within their workplace, and providing them with the appropriate training to enable employees to understand the rationale for the safety procedures that prevent exposures to blood-borne pathogens. This review of HIV/HBV articles pertinent to the occupational setting analyzes six topics including: (1) occupational risk of transmission of HIV, (2) occupational risk of transmission of HBV, (3) special concerns of dental practices, (4) risk of HIV/HBV outside the hospital, medical, or dental office setting, (5) legal and ethical issues involved in HIV testing, and (6) the United States Public Health Service postexposure HIV/HBV prophylaxis/treatment recommendations.

Blood-Borne Pathogens↗
PubMed2006

Demystifying the Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspection process.

Being prepared for an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspection can save a facility money, as well as potentially protect employees from serious illness or injury. This article explains the OSHA inspection process, types of violations that may be cited and the appeals process for employers and employees. Actual citations given in four recent OSHA health care facility inspections are discussed and general recommendations to prepare for an OSHA site visit are given.

Blood-Borne Pathogens↗
PubMed1993

The influence of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on infection control practice.

Beginning with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) activities to enforce the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention guidelines on Universal Precautions in 1987, this agency has had a direct and sustained impact on infection control programs. This article details how OSHA works, the OSHA inspection process, the bloodborne pathogens standard, current promulgation activities, other OSHA standards, OSHA reform, and the future of this agency.

Facility Regulation and Control↗
PubMed1986

Medical surveillance of employees under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

This paper will consider medical surveillance in the context of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has issued (after rule making) health standards covering approximately 24 toxic substances, and all these standards have included medical surveillance programs. OSHA is not only empowered but compelled by law to require medical surveillance programs for exposed employees. At the same time, a number of major legal/policy issues relating to medical surveillance have been raised at the standards rule-making stage and litigated in court. Among the more significant of these are access to medical records, selection of physician, and medical removals. Many of these issues were involved in OSHA's Lead Standard, issued in 1978 and affirmed in relevant part by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1980, and in the "medical access" rule, issued in 1980 and upheld by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. These two proceedings will be used as a focus for the discussions of medical surveillance programs under the OSHA act.

Federal Government↗
PubMed1981

Electrical standards: Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Final standard.

In this final standard, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) establishes "Design Safety Standards for Electrical Systems." This standard revises Subpart S of 29 CFR Part 1910 and is intended to simplify and update the former standard. OSHA has determined that electrical hazards in the workplace pose a significant risk of injury or death to employees, and that these regulations which draw heavily on the experience of the National Electrical Code are reasonably necessary to provide protection from these hazards. The final rule places relevant requirements of the National Electrical Code (NEC) into the text of the regulations, making it unnecessary for employers to refer to the NEC to determine their obligations and unnecessary for OSHA to continue to incorporate the NEC by reference. Additionally, the final rule clarifies certain provisions which were misunderstood by certain interested parties.

Accident Prevention↗
PubMed2001

Occupational injury and illness recording and reporting requirements. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), U.S. Department of Labor. Final rule.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is revising its rule addressing the recording and reporting of occupational injuries and illnesses (29 CFR parts 1904 and 1952), including the forms employers use to record those injuries and illnesses. The revisions to the final rule will produce more useful injury and illness records, collect better information about the incidence of occupational injuries and illnesses on a national basis, promote improved employee awareness and involvement in the recording and reporting of job-related injuries and illnesses, simplify the injury and illness recordkeeping system for employers, and permit increased use of computers and telecommunications technology for OSHA recordkeeping purposes. This rulemaking completes a larger overall effort to revise Part 1904 of Title 29 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Two sections of Part 1904 have already been revised in earlier rulemakings. A rule titled Reporting fatalities and multiple hospitalization incidents to OSHA, became effective May 2, 1994 and has been incorporated into this final rule as Section 1904.39. A second rule entitled Annual OSHA injury and illness survey of ten or more employers became effective on March 13, 1997 and has been incorporated into this final rule as Section 1904.41. The final rule being published today also revises 29 CFR 1952.4, Injury and Illness Recording and Reporting Requirements, which prescribes the recordkeeping and reporting requirements for States that have an occupational safety and health program approved by OSHA under Section 18 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (the "Act" or "OSH Act").

Accidents, Occupational↗
PubMed2006

Accidental needle sticks, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the fallacy of public policy.

BACKGROUND: Current Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) guidelines mandate the use of safety needles when allergy injections are given. Safety needles for intradermal testing remain optional. Whether safety needles reduce the number of accidental needle sticks (ANSs) in the outpatient setting has yet to be proven. OBJECTIVE: To determine the rate of ANSs with new (safety) needles vs old needles used in allergy immunotherapy and intradermal testing. METHODS: Allergy practices from 22 states were surveyed by e-mail. RESULTS: Seventy practices (28%) responded to the survey. Twice as many ANSs occurred in practices giving immunotherapy when using new needles vs old needles (P < .01). The rate of ANSs was roughly the same for intradermal testing with new needles vs old needles. CONCLUSIONS: These findings further question whether OSHA's guidelines for safety needle use in outpatient practice need revision and if allergy practices might be excluded from the requirement to use safety needles.

Accident Prevention↗
PubMed1997

Comparison of U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards and German Berufsgenossenschaften Guidelines for Preventive Occupational Health Examinations.

Thirty-three U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards contain mandated medical service provisions. The German Berufsgenossenschaften Guidelines for Preventive Occupational Health Examinations currently comprise 38 guidelines, which contain mandated medical service provisions. Based on a previously published method for scoring several medical program elements, the Berufsgenossenchaften guidelines were compared with the OSHA standards. Specific program elements were combined to generate and compare quality control scores, screening scores and surveillance scores. The asbestos standard/guidelines were compared in more detail (e.g., physical examination, laboratory tests, examination schedule, eligibility). The German medical requirements consistently ranked higher than their U.S. counterparts for overall scores and the scoring indices for quality control, screening, and surveillance. However, this comparison also reveals that few surveillance features have been incorporated into the medical requirements of either country, suggesting that neither country is making full use of workplace medical services for primary prevention.

Asbestos↗
PubMed1983

Occupational exposure to ethylene oxide--Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Proposed rule and notice of hearing.

By this notice, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is proposing to amend its existing occupational standard that regulates employee exposure to ethylene oxide (EtO). The basis for this action is a determination by the Assistant Secretary, based on animal and human data, that exposure to EtO at OSHA's current permissible exposure limit (PEL) of 50 parts EtO per million parts of air (50 ppm) as an eight (8)-hour time-weighted average (TWA) is inadequate for employee health protection. OSHA proposes to reduce the PEL for EtO to a TWA of 1 ppm. An "action level" of 0.5 ppm as a TWA is included in the proposal as a mechanism for exempting an employer from the obligation to comply with certain requirements, such as employee exposure monitoring and medical surveillance, in instances where the employer can demonstrate that the employees exposures are at very low levels. The proposal would provide for among other requirements certain methods of exposure control, personal protective equipment, measurement of employee exposures, training, medical surveillance, signs and labels, regulated areas, emergency procedures and recordkeeping.

Ethylene Oxide↗
PubMed1994

Interdisciplinary group approach to occupational safety and health administration standard: reductions in cost and duplication of effort.

After the December 1991 publication of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration standard, "Occupational Exposure to Bloodborne Pathogens; Final Rule," medical facilities in the United States were challenged to meet the mandates of this standard with massive training in a relatively short time. An interdisciplinary task force composed of representative members of a major health maintenance organization was charged with the task of developing a training plan for 11 Southern California medical centers and their 42 satellite medical offices. The task force ultimately developed, refined, and distributed a Trainer Guidebook that could be used by a variety of disciplines. This guidebook provided a method by which the information could be disseminated concisely, thoroughly, and promptly. The processes used in this project can be applied to other health care educational situations. The purpose of this article is to share these processes.

Cost Savings↗
PubMed1989

Development of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's proposed standard to protect workers from contracting bloodborne diseases in the workplace.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is in the process of developing a health standard to protect workers by reducing occupational exposure to hepatitis B virus, human immunodeficiency virus, and other bloodborne pathogens. This article reviews the history of the standard, the steps involved in OSHA standard development, and--most specifically--how the dental professional can participate in this process.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗