OSHA Fines

Ever wonder what OSHA really fines facilities for violations? Most places keep that under their hat unless there is a death that occurs and the incident makes the papers. However, a recent edition of Medical Environment Weekly, published by HCPro stated that OSHA fines for a first time violation of the safety needle requirement was $394.

Designing, Implementing and Evaluating a Sharps Injury Prevention Program

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated its Workbook for Designing, Implementing and Evaluating a Sharps Injury Prevention Program, a 62-page document that guides healthcare facilities in assessing safety culture and designing programs to eliminate needle and sharps injuries.

The new edition was made possible through an alliance with The Premier Safety Institute, Charlotte, NC. It incorporates feedback from eight hospitals that initiated programs based on the first edition issued in 2004. It also includes posters and tools for collecting data, evaluating devices, documenting exposure incidents, and implementing prevention devices and work practices.

For a free copy go to:
http://www.premierinc.com/safety/topics/needlestick/downloads/sharps-workbook-2008-high.pdf

Exposure Incidents

Needlesticks are not the only exposure incident that is reportable. Healthcare workers who are bitten by a patient must also report their exposure. According to OSHA, an exposure incident is a specific eye, mouth, other mucous membrane, non-intact skin, or parenteral contact with blood or other potentially infectious materials that results from the performance of an employee's job duties. Parenteral contact, as defined in the OSHA bloodborne pathogens standard, includes needlesticks, bites, cuts, abrasions, and similar injuries that result in a piercing of the skin or mucous membranes.

Needlesticks

According to an article in the August 8th issue of the American Journal of Infection Control that was conducted by the Center for Healthcare Policy and Research and the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of California in Davis, CA, white female nurses between ages 35-44 are the most frequent demographic and occupational category for a needlestick.

The study examined Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data on needlestick injuries requiring one or more days of lost work time from 1992 to 2003.Women comprised 73.3% of persons injured by needlesticks in the BLS data.

NIOSH Fact Sheet

NIOSH has just published a new fact sheet that indicates bloodborne pathogen exposure control plans must be specirfic to your facility, updated yearly and accessible to all employees. Recently OSHA fined a physician office $2,000 for not making the exposure control plan available to all its employees.