Five Areas that Require Bio-hazard Labeling

The Bloodborne Pathogens Standard outlines the regulations for bio-hazard labeling and color-coding. Three signals can alert you to the presence of a bio-hazard or bio-hazardous waste: the word “bio-hazard”, the bio-hazard symbol, or the fluorescent orange or orange-red color-coding.

These five areas are ones to watch for bio-hazard labeling in your facility:

1. Regulated medical waste containers and other containers (according to OSHA) that warning labels must be affixed to:

• Containers of regulated waste,
• Refrigerators and freezers containing blood or other potentially infectious material; and
• Other containers used to store, transport or ship blood or other potentially infectious materials.

EXCEPTIONS include:

• Containers of blood, blood components, or blood products that are labeled and have been released for transfusion,
• Individual containers of blood or other potentially infectious materials that are placed in a labeled container during storage, transport, shipment or disposal, or
• Regulated waste that has been decontaminated.

2. Sharps Containers

Sharps containers must also be labeled or color-coded in accordance with the requirements of the Bloodborne Pathogens Standard.

3. Contaminated Laundry

The Bloodborne Pathogens Standard also requires contaminated laundry to be placed and transported in labeled or color-coded bags. When a facility utilizes Universal Precautions in the handling of all soiled laundry, alternative labeling or color-coding is sufficient if it permits all employees to recognize the containers as requiring compliance with Universal Precautions.

When a facility ships contaminated laundry off-site to a second facility which does not utilize Universal Precautions in the handling of all laundry, the facility generating the contaminated laundry must place such laundry in labeled or color-coded bags or containers.

4. Specimens

Specimens of blood or other potentially infectious materials must be placed in a container which prevents leakage during collection, handling, processing, storage, transport, or shipping. The container for storage, transport, or shipping must be labeled or color-coded and closed prior to being stored, transported, or shipped.

5. Equipment

Equipment that may become contaminated with blood or other potentially infectious materials shall be examined prior to servicing or shipping and shall be decontaminated as necessary, unless the employer can demonstrate that decontamination of such equipment or portions of such equipment is not feasible, according to OSHA. A readily observable bio-hazard label shall be attached to the equipment stating which portions remain contaminated.

Ensure that you have bio-hazard labeling or color-coding, as necessary, in these five areas and in other areas of your facility that fall under the guidelines of OSHA’s Bloodborne Pathogens Standard 1910.1030.  In practice, most facilities typically use BOTH bio-hazard labeling AND color-coding in most cases.

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OSHA Slams Northridge Hospital for Health and Safety Violations

OSHA COMPLIANCE IS CRITICAL

State workplace safety regulators fined the operator of Northridge Hospital Medical Center about $44,125 for violations that potentially exposed the hospital’s 1,700 employees to non-compliance health hazards.

Dignity Health was cited after Cal/OSHA determined that the hospital failed to record information in over a dozen cases where hospital workers were stuck with needles, and failed to provide closeable containers in emergency rooms that would keep biohazard waste from spilling, according to the state agency.

Northridge Hospital said in a statement that it is working “diligently” to address the agency’s findings.

“We have a longstanding relationship with Cal/OSHA and appreciate the regulatory body working with us to ensure the safety of our employees,” according to the hospital.

Cal/OSHA’s Van Nuys office opened an investigation in June after receiving a complaint, resulting in 13 health code violations, regulators said.

“California’s health and safety requirements are some of the strongest in the nation, and they’re meant to prevent hospital workers from becoming hospital patients,” Cal/OSHA Chief Juliann Sum said.

The findings included violations of bloodborne pathogens precautions, which require employers to protect workers from coming into contact with blood or other disease-carrying body fluids, according to Cal/OSHA.

Cal/OSHA also issued general and regulatory violations because Dignity Health kept broken gurneys in the working area, skipped essential elements of training employees in safe patient handling, and failed to take corrective action after accidents occurred, regulators said.

In summary, there were four serious violations of the bloodborne pathogens standard, which requires employers to protect workers from coming into contact with blood or other disease-carrying body fluids. A serious violation is cited when there is a realistic possibility that death or serious harm could result from the actual hazardous condition. In this case, the serious violations included:

• Failure to gather information required by the Sharps injury log, such as type and brand of needles involved in the 18 injury cases. The employer had no procedure in place to review the log, or to solicit required input from employees about factors contributing to contaminated needle injuries. Well-kept injury logs, and their regular review, help to identify the causes of injuries and prevent future occurrences.

• Failure to provide containers that would prevent spillage or protrusion of contaminated needles in emergency treatment and trauma rooms. Additionally, the employer did not provide readily accessible hand washing facilities for emergency room employees.

• Failure to provide appropriate sizes of gloves for employees using the medication cart in the trauma room and the after-hours intake area.
Cal/OSHA also issued eight general and regulatory violations because Dignity Health kept broken gurneys in the working area, skipped essential elements of training employees in safe patient handling, and failed to take corrective action after accidents occurred. 

Sources: Northridge-Chatsworth Patch, stateofreform.com

For more information on this and other healthcare compliance topics related to HIPAA, OSHA, Medicare and HR, simply email your questions to support@hcsiinc.com, 
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Proper Sharps Disposal and Containers

Handling Sharps and Needles

Sharps Containers (also referred to as Sharps Disposal Containers, Medical Waste Disposal Containers, Biomedical Waste Disposal Containers, etc.) are specially made containers used to contain hazardous "piercing" instruments and reduce the chance of spreading infection. It is standard practice in developed and even underdeveloped countries for used needles to be placed immediately into a sharps container after a single use, with only a few exceptions to the general rule. Needles are dropped into the container without touching the outside of the container. Needles should never be pushed or forced into the container, as damage to the container and/or needlestick injuries may result. Proper use of a sharps container includes pick up by or delivery to an approved "red bag" or medical waste treatment site. In addition to this pre-existing safety measure, all U.S. medical and educational staff are federally required to be tested on their knowledge of bloodborne pathogens.

A sharps container is a term for a specially-made container that is predominantly used for medical needles and any other sharp medical instruments, such as an IV catheter. They are available in one of two types:

Single-use sharps containers - which are disposed of with the waste inside.

Reusable sharps containers - which are robotically emptied and sterilized before being returned for re-use.

Sharps is the term used to describe any item that is capable of puncturing the skin such as syringes, needles, lancets, broken glass with blood on it, scalpels, etc. Because these 'sharps' potentially have disease-carrying blood or other potentially infectious materials on them, they are capable of 'injecting' that blood or fluid into anyone who comes in contact with them. Examples of sharps include:

• Needles, syringes, lancets, broken glass with blood on it
• Suture needles, scalpel blades, butterflies (both traditional and safety)
• Vacutainer tubes (both plastic and glass)
• Phlebotomy needles with vacutainer tube holder attached
• Capillary tubes (both plastic and glass)
• IV catheters
• Dental anesthetic carpules with blood
• Dental wires and endodontic files
• Other sharp objects contaminated with blood such as box cutters and broken glass

For regulated businesses, such as healthcare faculties, in addition to sharps, regulated medical waste is defined by OSHA as:

• Pathology and microbiological waste
• Liquid or semi-liquid blood or other potentially infectious materials (OPIM*)
• Items caked with dried blood or OPIM
• Items that could release blood or OPIM

*OPIM: semen, vaginal secretions; fluids from around the spine, brain, joints, lungs, heart, and abdomen; saliva in a dental procedure; any body fluid with visible blood; any unidentifiable body fluid; and unfixed tissue.

Examples of non-sharps regulated medical waste include Tubing with blood in it and Blood-soaked gauze. Regulated medical waste does not include urine, feces, sputum, sweat, tears, or saliva or any items containing or once containing these fluids such as urine cups, incontinence pads, or diapers.

Preventing Injuries

Before you use a sharp object, such as a needle or scalpel, make sure you have all the items you need close by. This includes items like alcohol swabs, gauze, and bandages.

Also, know where the sharps disposal container is. Check to make sure there is enough room in the container for your object to fit. It should not be more than 2/3 full.

Some needles have a protective device, such as a needle shield, sheath, or blunting, that you activate after you remove the needle from the patient. This allows you to handle the needle safely, without the risk of exposing yourself to blood or body fluids. If you are using this kind of needle, make sure you know how it works before you use it.

Follow these guidelines when you work with sharps.

• Do not uncover or unwrap the sharp object until it is time to use it.
• Keep the object pointed away from you and other persons at all times.
• Never recap or bend a sharp object.
• Keep your fingers away from the tip of the object.
• If the object is reusable, put it in a secure, closed container after you use it.
• Never hand a sharp object to someone else or put it on a tray for another person to pick up.
• Tell the people you are working with when you plan to set the object down or pick it up.

Sharps Disposal

Make sure the disposal container is made for disposing of sharp objects. Replace containers when they are 2/3 full.

Other important tips include:

• Never put your fingers into the sharps container.
• If the needle has tubing attached to it, hold the needle and the tubing when you put it in the sharps container.
• Sharps containers should be at eye level and within your reach.
• If a needle is sticking out of the container, do not push it in with your hands. Call to have the container removed. Or, a trained person may use tongs to push the needle back into the container.
• If you find an uncovered sharp object outside of a disposal container, it is safe to pick it up only if you can grasp the non-sharp end. If you cannot, use tongs to pick it up and dispose of it. 

According to OSHA, healthcare employees must have access to sharps containers that are easily accessible to the immediate area where sharps are used (29 CFR 1910.1030(d)(4)(iii)(A)(2)(i)).

The FDA recommends that used needles and other sharps be immediately placed in FDA-cleared sharps disposal containers. The FDA has evaluated the safety and effectiveness of these containers and has cleared them for use by health care professionals and the public to help reduce the risk of injury and infections from sharps.

FDA-cleared sharps disposal containers are made from rigid plastic and come marked with a line that indicates when the container should be considered full, which means it’s time to dispose of the container.

How do the Bloodborne Pathogens standard and the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act apply to you?  OSHA's Bloodborne Pathogens standard (29 CFR 1910.1030), including its 2001 revisions, applies to all employers who have an employee(s) with occupational exposure (i.e., reasonably anticipated skin, eye, mucous membrane, or parenteral contact with blood or other potentially infectious materials (OPIM) that may result from the performance of the employee's duties). These employers must implement the requirements set forth in the standard. Some of the new and clarified provisions in the standard apply only to healthcare settings, but other provisions, particularly the requirements to update the Exposure Control Plan and to keep a sharps injury log, apply to non-healthcare as well as healthcare settings. Make sure your staff are properly trained in OSHA compliance standards and have the required tools to perform their job safely.

Sources: www.osha.gov, www.fda.gov, U.S. National Library of Medicine and http://www.sharpscontainers.org/

For more information on this and other topics related to HR, HIPAA, OSHA, and Medicare, please email support@hcsiinc.com or visit our website at http://www.hcsiinc.com 
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Double Gloving Can Protect You

Benefits of Double Gloving

                                                           

Healthcare providers observed blood on their hands after surgery more frequently when they wore a single pair of gloves than when they wore two pairs of gloves and generally had a favorable opinion on double gloving, according to a recent study.

                                                           

The study, appearing in a recent article of the AORN (Association of periOperative Registered Nurses) Journal, examines the effect of double gloving with inner indicator gloves on the durability of inner gloves and the detection of glove tears or perforations during surgery.

                                                           

“Double gloving by itself may protect the wearer’s skin from needle sticks because breaches are more likely to occur to the outer gloves than the inner gloves,” according to the study’s authors, Denise Korniewicz, PhD, RN, FAAN, and Maher El-Masri, PhD, RN.

                                                           

The study also found that healthcare providers who wore dark-colored gloves under light-colored gloves changed them during surgery with significantly more frequency than those who wore two pairs of the same color. 

OSHA Needle-stick Injury Checklist

Needle-stick Injury Checklist

The following is a checklist for you to follow in the event of a needle-stick:

● Immediately wash the exposed area with soap and water.

● Notify your OSHA Compliance Officer.

● Notify doctor “of record” for the patient.

● If the source is known to be HIV positive, OR is at high risk, THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! (In this situation, the employee SHOULD have been double gloved!).

● Offer Chemoprophylaxis (PEP) within 1-2 hours.

● Obtain consent from “source“ to draw blood.

● Source Patient: Draw a “STAT” HIV screen, HBsAg, HbsAb, and Hep C Ab.

● The “STAT” HIV screen needs an EDTA (purple) tube, the rest require serum. One purple top and one 6-8 cc serum tube is needed.

● If the source is NOT infected with a bloodborne pathogen, no further baseline testing is required on the employee.

● Perform Anti-HCV and ALT testing in 4-6 months.

● A previously vaccinated known responder to HBV requires no further testing.

● Perform HIV-antibody testing at 6 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months post-exposure.

● Complete Sharps Injury Log.

● Lastly, complete your Post-Exposure Checklist.

Proper Maintenance of Eyewash Stations

OSHA Issues Warning about Contaminated Eyewash Water

OSHA published an Info sheet on August 7, 2015, highlighting the infection hazards that may be present when emergency eyewash stations are improperly maintained. Eyewash facilities are required in workplaces where corrosive chemicals are used and in HIV and HBV research laboratories and production facilities and “where there is any possibility that an employee’s eyes may be splashed with solutions containing 0.1 percent or greater formaldehyde,” while research and production laboratories and medical facilities also may have them.

“How can improperly maintained eyewash stations cause infections? Water found in improperly maintained eyewash stations is more likely to contain organisms (e.g., Acanthamoeba, Pseudomonas, Legionella) that thrive in stagnant or untreated water and are known to cause infections,” it states. “When a worker uses an eyewash station that is not maintained, organisms in the water may come into contact with the eye, skin, or may be inhaled. Workers using eyewash stations after exposure to a hazardous chemical or material may have eye injuries that make the eye more susceptible to infection. Also, workers with skin damage or compromised immune systems (e.g., transplant recovery, cancer, lupus) are at increased risk for developing illnesses from contaminated water.”

The document recommends complying with the ANSI/ISEA standard, Z358.1-2014, which says plumbed systems should be activated weekly to eliminate these hazards.

“Self-contained eyewash units must be maintained and employers should consult the manufacturer’s instructions for maintenance procedures. This includes flushing the system and using only solutions appropriate for flushing eyes,” the document states.

The complete Info sheet can be read here.

Are Your Disinfecting & Sterilizing Procedures OSHA Compliant?

OSHA Standard Disinfection and Sterilization

According to OSHA standards, disinfection and sterilization procedures should be used for all reusable instruments, devices and other items that are contaminated with blood and/or other potentially infectious materials (OPIM).

Your practice should use the following definitions as guidelines for appropriate sterilization and/or disinfection procedures:

Disinfection levels and sterilization

High level disinfection:

Must be used on all semi-critical care items that could be damaged by heat sterilization. Use a product labeled “disinfectant/sterilant” and leave the items immersed for the shorter time recommended by the manufacturer. (The longer time is used for “cold sterilization”.)

Intermediate level disinfection:

Must not be used on semi-critical care items. Use it for disinfection of non-critical care items that are contaminated with blood or OPIM. A bleach solution (1 part bleach to 10 parts water) is strong enough but must be mixed fresh daily. Wipe the item to be cleaned with the bleach solution (or a commercial disinfectant) and allow it to air dry.

Low level disinfection:

Not necessary for non-critical care items that have not been contaminated with blood or OPIM. Proper cleaning is usually sufficient. To use a low-level disinfection, wipe or spray an EPA registered disinfectant on the surfaces of the cleaned items and let them air dry.

Sterilization:

Destroys all microorganisms (including viruses) and their spores. Sterilization can be accomplished by the use of steam (steam autoclave), dry heat, chemicals under pressure (chemical autoclave) or an EPA registered product that is labeled “disinfectant/sterilant” (sometimes referred to as “cold sterilization”).

Critical Care Items

Critical care items:

All instruments and/or devices that are introduced directly into the bloodstream. They touch bone or penetrate tissue. All of these items must be sterilized.

Semi-critical care items:

Instruments that touch mucous membranes but do not touch bone or penetrate tissue. Sterilize them or, if the items are damaged by heat, use a high-level disinfection process following the manufacturer’s guidelines.

Non-critical care items:

Equipment and environmental surfaces that will come into contact with intact skin only. Floors, exam tables, crutches, and countertops are examples of non-critical care items. Use intermediate-level disinfection for non-critical care items. (Cleaning alone is sufficient unless the items are visibly contaminated with blood.)

Biological monitoring is a “spore test” and is the only way to ensure that heat sterilization is effectively killing all types of microorganisms. Check with the manufacturer of sterilizer for the proper spore test. Mail the exposed test spores to an appropriate microbiology lab for testing or check them in a special incubator designed for that purpose. 

Would Your Office Pass the Top 10 OSHA Citations?

Top 10 OSHA Citations in Medical Offices

OSHA recently fined a New York medical practice almost $45,000 for inadequate worker safeguards against blood-borne pathogen hazards. The citations included the lack of a written exposure control program outlining the protective measures used to eliminate or minimize workers’ exposure to blood and other potentially infectious materials, failing to provide employees properly fitted protective wear and training in its use, failing to offer the Hepatitis B vaccine to at-risk employees, allowing sharps containers to overfill and allowing employees to recap non-engineered contaminated needles.

Listed below are the most common violations for medical practices, many of which the New York practice was cited for, as indicated by asterisks.

1.      Failure to implement and maintain an exposure control under the Blood-borne Pathogen Standard (BBP);**

2.      Failure to train under the BBP Standard;**

3.      Failure to engineer out hazards/ensure hand washing under the BBP Standard;**

4.      Poor housekeeping under the BBP Standard;**

5.      Failure to implement and maintain a written a Hazard Communication Program;

6.      Failure to make the Hepatitis B vaccination available under the BBP Standard;**

7.      Failure to prepare exposure determinations under the BBP Standard;

8.      Failure use personal protective equipment under the BBP Standard;**

9.      Failure to provide post exposure Hepatitis B vaccinations under the BBP Standard; and

10.  Failure to train employees under the Hazard Communications Standard.**

To avoid potential areas of non-compliance, you should regularly audit your practice for safety and health hazards.  Employee training and periodic refresher training is also essential, especially regarding the Blood-borne Pathogen and Hazard Communication Standards.

(FHC website)

Create a Culture of Safety and Avoid OSHA Fines

Boosting Employee Safety and Avoiding OSHA Citations

Although it’s impossible for employers to mitigate against every conceivable hazard in the workplace, there are five critical steps that every employer should take to improve safety in the workplace—and avoid costly OSHA citations.

●        Conduct an Internal Safety and Health Audit

One of the most effective ways for an employer to identify and eliminate safety hazards in the workplace is to conduct a safety and health audit. Employers should closely examine every aspect of their workplace to ensure they’re in full compliance with OSHA standards and best practices.

Employers must take care, though, in the way they conduct and document such audits.

In an inspection, OSHA may demand to see audit reports and use them to identify potential hazards in the workplace, essentially using the employer’s proactive audit against it and issuing citations based on hazards identified but not yet remedied.

Employers can protect their internal audit reports from disclosure to OSHA by working with counsel in conducting their audits. The audit report is then protected from disclosure to OSHA by the attorney-client communication privilege.

●        Create a Strong Safety Culture

A robust and authentic safety culture is critical for ensuring employee health and safety. Management at all levels should be involved in creating this culture, actively communicating with employees and being physically present where employees do their jobs. Such actions demonstrate to employees that employers are serious about safety, increasing employees’ commitment to safety and their overall job satisfaction. By doing this, employers have the opportunity to observe potential hazards with their own eyes and discover other potential hazards through conversations with employees.

Employers should assure employees that safety is a priority and that suggestions for improving safety in the workplace are not only welcome, but encouraged. By providing open lines of communication with employees, employers again encourage a commitment to safety at all levels of the organization and significantly improve the odds they will learn of a potential problem.

Employees are often the first to identify a potential hazard, and having regularly worked in a particular area, they have insightful suggestions about how problems can best be resolved. When an employee identifies a potential hazard, the employer should assess the situation promptly and respond to the issue in a timely manner.

●        Ensure That Safety and Health Documentation Is Current and Well Communicated

All employers must provide to their employees essential safety information, such as how to evacuate in an emergency. OSHA also requires employers to provide a range of written guidance to employees regarding the essentials of safely performing their work.

Every employer should regularly review its OSHA documentation requirements, which may change from time to time. Recently, for example, OSHA updated the Hazard Communication Standard to align with the GHS. Having determined the extent of their documentation requirements, employers should review their documents and ensure that they are thorough and up to date. Finally, employers should make sure that employees fully comprehend the documentation, know how and when to use it, and understand the reason for maintaining it. This helps to ensure employee safety and gives employees another opportunity to provide suggestions and point out information that’s missing from the documents.

●        Train Employees in Safety and Health, Regularly and Comprehensively

OSHA standards include a number of training requirements. OSHA often cites employers for failure to train employees on relevant safety and health information and failure to ensure that employees understand the training. This is avoidable.

Employers must provide comprehensive training to employees in a way that employees can fully comprehend. A simple way to ensure compliance with this requirement is to administer a quiz at the conclusion of the training, requiring employees to demonstrate their comprehension of the information that was relayed to them. Many employers require employees to achieve a high score on such quizzes (e.g., 90 to 100 percent). If employees are unable to reach the required score on the first try, they should be given the opportunity to be retrained and take the quiz again. Employers should keep records of all safety and health training provided to employees and should keep quizzes and other related materials on file. Simply being able to provide these documents to OSHA in the event of an inspection will go a long way toward proving that the employer has complied with OSHA’s training requirements.

●        Protect Contractors and Temporary Workers, Too

Employers should make every effort to ensure that all employees working in their facilities are safe – contractors and temporary workers included. Many tragic incidents can be avoided by ensuring that everyone is on the same page when it comes to safety. Although this task may sound daunting, it is another essential element of creating a truly safe working environment.

OSHA has instructed its compliance officers to expand the scope of inspections to include temporary workers who may have been exposed to a hazard identified by OSHA. This instruction led to a 322 percent increase in inspections involving temporary employees in 2014. In only 15 percent of those inspections, citations were issued to the temporary agencies—but countless citations were issued to host employers, often for failing to train temporary workers properly or to provide them with the safety gear provided to permanent employees, leaving temporary workers at an increased risk of harm.

(EBGL website)

Safety in the Laboratory

Laboratory OSHA Safety Culture

                                                           

The safety culture varies greatly from laboratory to laboratory. Most lab employees these days know that eating food or drinking in the lab is against most, if not all, lab regulatory agency rules and guidelines. However, it is surprising that many do not seem to understand that gum chewing or using hard candy or throat lozenges is also not permitted in a laboratory setting.

                                                           

OSHA’s Bloodborne Pathogen Standard specifically states “Eating, drinking, smoking, applying cosmetics or lip balm, and handling contact lenses are prohibited in work areas where there is a reasonable likelihood of occupational exposure.” Obviously, the goal of this regulation is to prevent employees from obtaining infection via ingestion. A secondary goal is to limit hand to mouth contact while working in the laboratory. So far there has been no mention of gum or cough drops in the standards.

                                                           

In the National Research Council’s Prudent Practices in the Laboratory (1995), it states “Eating, drinking, smoking, gum chewing, applying cosmetics, and taking medicine in laboratories where hazardous chemicals are used should be strictly prohibited.” In the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute’s document Clinical Laboratory Safety (GP-17 A3, 2012), it states “Food, drink and substances that provide potential hand-to-mouth contact (including chewing gum and lip balm) are prohibited in technical work areas.”

                                                           

Most inspectors of the laboratory will cite the lab for gum chewing or the like. An employee may respond that the gum was placed into their mouth outside the lab, but proving that would be difficult at best. It is an inappropriate and unsafe practice, and it should not be allowed.

                                                           

Again, limit hand-to-mouth or hand-to-face contact in the laboratory. What about telephone use? There are speaker options for phones that can help, but some labs are too noisy for that type of use. Disinfect phones often if that is the case.

As with any other safety regulation, if you explain it to staff, and if you make it easy to comply, your safety culture will improve. Educate your staff about these guidelines and standards and why they exist. Unfortunately, many workers fell victim to harmful infectious diseases before these regulations were developed. Don’t let your staff become another part of those unfortunate lab safety statistics.

5 Areas Requiring Bio-Hazard Labels

Five Areas that Require OSHA Bio-hazard Labeling

The Blood-borne Pathogens Standard outlines the regulations for bio-hazard labeling and color-coding. Three signals can alert you to the presence of a bio-hazard or bio-hazardous waste: the word “bio-hazard”, the bio-hazard symbol, or the fluorescent orange or orange-red color-coding.

These five areas are ones to watch for bio-hazard labeling in your facility:

●       Regulated medical waste containers and other containers

      According to OSHA, warning labels must be affixed to:

○     Containers of regulated waste,

○     Refrigerators and freezers containing blood or other potentially infectious material; and

○     Other containers used to store, transport or ship blood or other potentially infectious materials.

EXCEPTIONS include:

○     Containers of blood, blood components, or blood products that are labeled and have been released for transfusion,

○     Individual containers of blood or other potentially infectious materials that are placed in a labeled container during storage, transport, shipment or disposal, or

○     Regulated waste that has been decontaminated.

●       Sharps Containers

Sharps containers must also be labeled or color-coded in accordance with the requirements of the Blood-borne Pathogens Standard.

●       Contaminated Laundry

The Blood-borne Pathogens Standard also requires contaminated laundry to be placed and transported in labeled or color-coded bags. When a facility utilizes Universal Precautions in the handling of all soiled laundry, alternative labeling or color-coding is sufficient if it permits all employees to recognize the containers as requiring compliance with Universal Precautions.

When a facility ships contaminated laundry off-site to a second facility which does not utilize Universal Precautions in the handling of all laundry, the facility generating the contaminated laundry must place such laundry in labeled or color-coded bags or containers.

●       Specimens

Specimens of blood or other potentially infectious materials must be placed in a container which prevents leakage during collection, handling, processing, storage, transport, or shipping. The container for storage, transport, or shipping must be labeled or color-coded and closed prior to being stored, transported, or shipped.

●       Equipment

Equipment that may become contaminated with blood or other potentially infectious materials shall be examined prior to servicing or shipping and shall be decontaminated as necessary, unless the employer can demonstrate that decontamination of such equipment or portions of such equipment is not feasible, according to OSHA. A readily observable bio-hazard label shall be attached to the equipment stating which portions remain contaminated.

Ensure that you have bio-hazard labeling or color-coding, as necessary, in these five areas and in other areas of your facility that fall under the guidelines of OSHA’s Blood-borne Pathogens Standard 1910.1030.  In practice, most facilities typically use BOTH bio-hazard labeling AND color-coding in most cases.

#osha