Discuss the role of OSHA requirements in healthcare facilities
Discuss the role of OSHA requirements in healthcare facilities
LO 03.02 – Describe how to apply an OSHA post-exposure evaluation and follow-up procedure
LO 03.03 – List the 4 types of medical waste and explain how to properly discard each type of waste
LO 03.06 – Define and give examples of each of the following: engineering controls, work practice controls, personal protective equipment, and housekeeping procedures.
Career Relevancy
Medical assistants are regularly exposed to harmful and infectious agents, which might be a patient’s blood, a chemical, an x-ray, or something else entirely. As you face these situations on the job, you must be prepared to respond properly if something goes wrong. Fortunately, there are laws in place that govern how you should handle exposures to yourself and others and provide guidelines on how to control the spread of diseases. Before entering the medical practice, you must know about and be able to carry out OSHA standards for reporting exposure to bloodborne pathogens. Similarly, you’ll need to be familiar with what controls your organization has in place so you know how you’re being protected and how to uphold specific procedures and policies.
Background
post operative disposal
After a month on the job, Luca has really hit his stride. He’s got a firm grasp of what it takes to keep Stonehill Community Clinic clean, sterile, and free of disease-carrying pathogens. He also understands how to protect himself and his patients from germs and toxins. As Penny as explained, even the slightest deviation from proper procedures can have adverse consequences for everyone involved.
On a Friday before a long weekend off, Luca has to help out in the OR with an unexpected cesarean section. But during the operation, the mother’s blood gets onto Luca’s wrist where there’s a gap between his gown and his glove. Unfortunately, the blood ends up touching a recent wound on his skin, a scratch he got from his cat that very morning.
He immediately tells Penny and asks her what to do. An expert in all processes and procedures, Penny tells him that OSHA, in addition to providing specific health and safety regulations, requires that employers administer a post-exposure follow-up with an employee when the employee has experienced an exposure incident. An exposure incident is an event in which an employee has specific contact with blood or other potentially infectious materials (OPIM). The contact may be with the employee’s eye, mouth, other mucous membranes, non-intact skin, or another parenteral area, and contact can happen in many different ways, such as with a needlestick.
First, Penny tells him to wash the wound. She also mentions that if this were to happen with a needlestick, Luca would address that, too. These are the general steps.
Wash open cuts with soap and water. Wash needlestick, if applicable.
Flush the nose, mouth, or skin with water.
Irrigate eyes with clean water, saline, or sterile irrigates.
Report the incident.
Seek immediate medical treatment.
Penny explains that exposure to a patient’s blood, for instance, can be potentially life-threatening. If a patient has hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, HIV, or other bloodborne pathogens, the employee is at risk for infection. Taking the necessary steps to document the incident and seek medical help is key for the safety of all healthcare workers. Penny says that exposure follow-up should be conducted, and she explains what’s involved:
A confidential medical evaluation. Healthcare facilities should provide a confidential evaluation to the employee that is free of charge and at a reasonable time and place. A licensed healthcare professional or physician must perform or supervise the evaluation, which will be done per U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) standards. It may involve laboratory tests to examine the employee’s blood.
Documentation. There must be proper documentation of how and when the incident occurred, which should include the routes and circumstances of the exposure. With blood, this typically involves testing the source individual, or patient’s blood, and making those results known to the exposed employee.
Treatment. Afterward, there should be an administration of post-exposure prophylaxis. This happens when medically indicated, as recommended by the U.S. Public Health Service.
Luca follows the steps, and Stonehill Community Clinic provides him with support and guidance. The mother did not have any bloodborne pathogens or diseases, and he manages to come through without contacting an infection. But it was an alarming situation, which makes him even more curious about the controls in place to help protect him and his colleagues from dangerous interactions on the job. Eager to learn more, Luca does additional research.
He discovers that there is a hierarchy of controls (Links to an external site.) that many workplaces use to help protect their workers. The hierarchy classifies different types of actions, and it’s used to help the employer determine what measured steps to take in making sure their employees are kept safe and healthy. Four of the controls are engineering controls, work practice controls, personal protective equipment, and housekeeping procedures.
Engineering controls: These controls provide a high level of protection because they involve removing the hazard at the source and isolating it from employees before they come into contact with it. This might mean installing a ventilation system that cleans the air of hazardous gases or chemicals.
Work practice controls. Also called administrative controls, these controls involve changing the way people work. They can be training, procedure, policy, or shift designs to reduce the threat of a hazard to employees, such as improved signage about dangerous medical waste.
Personal protective equipment. This control involves ensuring employees are wearing personal protective equipment to keep themselves safe from disease or injury. Healthcare workers often wear gloves as a part of their required PPE.
Housekeeping procedures. These procedures focus on making sure employees work in clean and sanitary work environments. This might involve specific cleaning schedules and protocols to keep spaces sterilized or disinfected.
Luca comes across this video (5:14 min) that captures some of the general health and safety ideas he’s reading about. But that’s all the research he can muster for one night. He feels so much more confident and prepared now that he’s learned about the ins and outs of medical asepsis and the many ways he can protect himself, his patients, and his colleagues. He rests easy, excited for what’s in store in the days, months, and years, to come.
Resources and References
Bloodborne Pathogen Exposure Incidents. (n.d.). OSHA FactSheet. Retrieved from https://www.osha.gov/OshDoc/data_BloodborneFacts/bbfact04.pdf (Links to an external site.)
Janeway, C. A. and P. Travers, M. Walport, et al. (2001). Additional precautions and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/clinicalskills/chapter/1-8-masks/ (Links to an external site.)
Healthcare Wide Hazards Bloodborne Pathogens. (n.d.). Occupational Health and Safety Administration. Retrieved from https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/hospital/hazards/bbp/bbp.html#PostExposureFollow-up (Links to an external site.)
The Hierarchy of Controls. (2019, February 21). Healthier Workforce Center. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/XOkPcLD5Soo (Links to an external site.)
Shred Nations. (2018, October 18). How to properly dispose medical waste: The go-to guide. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/tgoyeIjAPqI
Collepals.com Plagiarism Free Papers
Are you looking for custom essay writing service or even dissertation writing services? Just request for our write my paper service, and we'll match you with the best essay writer in your subject! With an exceptional team of professional academic experts in a wide range of subjects, we can guarantee you an unrivaled quality of custom-written papers.
Get ZERO PLAGIARISM, HUMAN WRITTEN ESSAYS
Why Hire Collepals.com writers to do your paper?
Quality- We are experienced and have access to ample research materials.
We write plagiarism Free Content
Confidential- We never share or sell your personal information to third parties.
Support-Chat with us today! We are always waiting to answer all your questions.
