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April 27 in Tuscaloosa, AL, started with eerie expectation, with warnings of severe weather and reports of tornadoes. By the afternoon, "it was very quiet, very dark and quite warm," says Beth Francis, SPHR, vice president for human resources for the DCH Health System in Tuscaloosa. "We knew the area was quite susceptible to being hit."
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It's official: Safe patient handling is one of the U.S. public health achievements of the decade.
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Injuries from contaminated needles and other sharps that can cause infectious diseases are preventable, and shouldn't be tolerated as a cost of doing business by health care organizations charged with ensuring safety and preventing harm.
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The skin is a very effective barrier to hazards such as blood or body fluids. But because some chemicals can penetrate the skin, health care workers need to be aware of the risks and necessary protections, says Scott Dotson, PhD, CIH, an industrial hygienist with the Education and Information Division of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Cincinnati.
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The new rules of the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) focus primarily on first-year residents to reduce fatigue and fatigue-related errors.
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When a single imported case of measles led to a small outbreak in Tucson, AZ, in 2008, two hospitals were forced to spend a total of some $800,000 to contain it, much of that related to ensuring the immunity of employees.
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Being greener is safer. As hospitals join the sustainability movement, they are making the workplace safer for their own employees.
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As of July 1, first-year medical residents may be getting a better night's sleep. New rules limit duty hours for interns to a 16-hour shift, ban them from moonlighting, and require them to have at least 8 hours free between duty hours.
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Hospitals will need to retrain all their employees on chemical hazards when the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration finalizes its changes to the Hazard Communication Standard.
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In the May issue of HEH, we reported on an effort to reduce sharps injuries by using disposal containers with a better design. A reader subsequently posed a question: Would you administer post-exposure prophylaxis to an employee who receives a sharps injury from an unknown source, such as a sharp protruding from a container?
