Did you know that a health facility is one of the most hazardous places to work? OSHA created a suite of resources to help your health facility to assess workplace health, safety and environmental needs, implement safety and health management systems and enhance your patients handling programs. Here are a few tips on how to keep your health facility OSHA compliant on medical waste management.
Understand OSHA Standards that Apply to Your Health Facility Medical Waste Disposal San Diego
Create Hazard communication standards
Ensure that you and your employees know more about hazardous chemicals in the workplace and how to protect yourselves. You must prepare and implement either a written or automatic hazard communication program and ensure your facility complies with other requirements of the medical waste services.
Emergency action plan standards
Make sure emergency medical waste disposal plan to assist your employees, while in the office. OSHA standards require that your employees must be aware of the emergency medical waste action plan, while in your health facility. You should also provide all medical and first-aid personnels with emergency medical waste services plan.
Personal protective standards
You must perform an assessment of all operations in the workplace to determine if your employees need personal protective equipment. Designate restricted areas to limit exposure of your employees and patients to medical waste, and ensure that employees working in designated areas are protected: label and equip with caution signs.
Bloodborne pathogens standard
You must protect your employees from Bloodborne pathogens exposure. If you have employees whose jobs put them at reasonable risk of coming in contact with blood or potentially infectious medical waste, ensure you develop a written or automatic exposure control plan, providing training to the exposed employees and complying with the required standards.
Understand OSHA hazards at your health facility
Ergonomic hazards
Put in place a systematic standard to control all the ergonomic stresses at your health facility, including lifting and repositioning patients and materials.
Workplace violence
Health care employees face a significant risk of job-related violence. You must establish violence prevention program and track the progress of your employees in an effort to minimize work-related assaults.
Chemical hazards
Health facility employees may be exposed to various medical chemicals on the job. Ensure that you either transition to safer chemicals or reduce the exposure to medical waste disposal of these chemicals:
- Ethylene oxide
- Beryllium
- Formaldehyde
- Glutaraldehyde
- Mercury
- Waste anesthetic gases and
- Hazardous chemicals in laboratories
Establish a chemical waste management system that goes beyond complying with OSHA standards and strive to eliminate or reduce chemical hazards at the source via an informed medical waste disposal San Diego that best protect your employees.
Waste disposal management
Check your medical waste acceptance protocol for your health facility services and review them with your employees to ensure you are complying with the OSHA requirements. Minimize what must go out as regulated medical waste services.
Train Your Employees
Understand exactly who must be trained in medical waste management, and how often to meet OSHA standards. In fact, you must a custom employees’ training program to address your specific objectives and the unique requirement of your health facility. Remember, to properly document all your medical waste disposal training kits to avoid penalties when OSHA inspectors ask to see training records.