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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Surgical masks are no worse than respirators in protecting health care workers from influenza. Is this statement based on science or politics?
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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.
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Number of respirators needed during a pandemic would be astronomical
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With health care workers in the bulls eye of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), hospitals preparedness was recently tested by the first two U.S. cases in Indiana and Florida. The real-world situation revealed one critical element of a response plan: Communication.
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Despite a crashing economy, employee health professionals reported receiving a salary increase of at least 1% to 3%. In fact, according to the 2008 Hospital Employee Health salary survey, almost one-third of employee health professionals (31%) reported receiving 4% or more.
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Hospitals are stuck in a holding pattern in their sharps safety programs. Injury rates dropped dramatically after the implementation of safer sharps in 2001, but many facilities have since reached a plateau.