Hospital Employee Health – February 1, 2010
February 1, 2010
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Empowered OSHA targets airborne infectious disease hazards
Expect more regulation. Like a sleeping giant that awakens with a roar, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration is moving forward with new initiatives, including the first steps toward a possible airborne infectious diseases standard and renewing proposed record-keeping rules on musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) injuries. -
Safety and health workers: Rethinking old assumptions
It is no easy task to be an occupational safety and health practitioner in the health care industry. Longstanding and deeply embedded assumptions are always difficult to shake, even when the need to do so becomes increasingly apparent. -
Politics blurs the science of respiratory protection
Surgical masks are no worse than respirators in protecting health care workers from influenza. Is this statement based on science or politics? -
Timeline of respirator use in health workers
1993: The Labor Coalition to Fight TB in the Workplace petitioned the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration for a tuberculosis standard. -
Leaky needles raise device supply issue
The sharps safety devices provided with the 2009 H1N1 vaccine provoked a flurry of complaints as nurses found them to be difficult to activate, leaky, or too large. -
WA law pushes hospitals to 'no-lift' status
This month, the nation's most comprehensive safe patient handling law takes its full effect: Hospitals in Washington state must have equipment to reduce injuries by Jan. 31. The state's Department of Health will enforce the rule through its licensing process. -
NIOSH to collect data on chem hazards
How widespread are chemical hazards in health care? The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) seeks to find out and is proposing an online survey, which would be targeted to members of professional organizations such as the American Nurses Association.