Practice Management Alert

Let OSHA standards and recommendations be your guide.

In 2020, more workers in healthcare and the social assistance industry sector were injured than in any other industry in the private sector, with “5.5 cases per 100 FTE [full-time equivalent] workers” according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) citing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The reason: a laundry list of “serious safety and health hazards” including “bloodborne pathogens and biological hazards, potential chemical and drug exposures, waste anesthetic gas exposures, respiratory hazards, ergonomic hazards from lifting and repetitive tasks, laser hazards, workplace violence, hazards associated with laboratories, and radioactive material and x-ray hazards,” according to OSHA.

What, then, can you and your practice do to ensure you and your colleagues don’t become statistics and remain safe on the job? Here are six tips you can implement to safeguard your workplace.

Tip 1: Understand OSHA Safety Standards for Healthcare

OSHA has issued a series of safety standards for healthcare that employers need to abide by in order to ensure a safe workplace for employees. These include general requirements for personal protective equipment (PPE) and specific requirements for eye, face, and respiratory protection as well as requirements regarding exposure to toxic and hazardous substances, including bloodborne pathogens, ethylene oxide, formaldehyde, ionizing radiation, and other hazardous chemicals in laboratories. OSHA also has specific guidelines for communications between employers and employees regarding hazardous chemicals.

Employers are also required to adhere to OSHA-approved health and safety programs designed for specific states and U.S. territories. These include “22 State Plans covering both private sector and state and local government workers, and seven State Plans covering only state and local government workers,” per OSHA.

Tip 2: Analyze Workplace Records to Implement Effective Safety Protocols

OSHA requires most employers with 10 or more employees to maintain a record of work-related injuries or illnesses that resulted in work restrictions, absence from work of a day or more, medical treatment, diagnosis of a condition by a physician or other healthcare professional, loss of consciousness, or even death.

“Careful review and analysis of the log,” OSHA suggests, can help an employer “develop a roadmap to prevention and tailor corrective actions specific to the situations found in [the] workplace … and possible solutions, can be obtained by soliciting input and involvement of frontline workers.”

Tip 3: Create a Strong Safety Culture

Citing the results of a 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), OSHA believes that total institutional commitment to accident prevention is the most effective way to ensure workplace safety. Specifically, the IOM report recommended:

• Management should be active in improving safety for staff and patients
• Staff should participate in safety initiatives
• Proper safety equipment should be made readily available
• Safety practices should be normalized within teams
• New hires should be socialized into effective safety practices

Tip 4: Address Threats of Workplace Violence

OSHA has not issued standards for dealing with violence in the workplace. However, OSHA suggests implementing a local workplace violence program involving both management and workers. Elements, outlined in their publication Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence for Healthcare and Social Service Workers, include:

• Management commitment and employee participation,
• Worksite analysis,
• Hazard prevention and control,
• Safety and health training, and
• Recordkeeping and program evaluation.

OSHA recommends one very specific outcome for the program: articulation of a zero-tolerance workplace violence policy that covers everyone using the practice or facility, no matter in what capacity. That policy should be easily accessible in an employee handbook or standard operating procedure manual and be incorporated in new employee or ongoing workplace violence trainings.

Tip 5: Follow Safe Patient Handling Advice

The vast majority of healthcare worker injuries (“more than five times the average for all injuries,” according to OSHA) are musculoskeletal conditions brought on by physically handling patients. This is particularly true among healthcare workers in long-term care, acute care, and home healthcare, as well as workers in physical therapy, radiology, and sonography specialties.

To reduce patient handling injuries, OSHA recommends employers implement “an effective program to control the risk of injury to patients and staff associated with lifting, transferring, repositioning or movement of patients,” which should include the following elements:

• Commitment by management to the program;
• Participation of employees in the program, especially in assessing, selecting, and implementing patient handling devices;
• Assessment of hazards, especially in high-risk areas;
• Investment in equipment;
• Patient handling care planning;
• Staff training; and
• Ongoing program review and evaluation.

Tip 6: Identify Other Local Workplace Hazards

Depending on your practice’s or facility’s focus, you may need to address other occupational hazards and develop specific policies for dealing with them. These might include the safe storage, handling, and administration of toxic drugs, including antineoplastic drugs used in cancer chemotherapy; workplace safety around ionizing radiation produced by X-ray machines, isotopes, and radio nucleotides; and allergies caused by exposure to medical equipment such as gloves that contain latex.

Ultimately, workplace safety is something that everyone, from management down, needs to participate in. Everyone should collaborate in identifying threats, creating policies and procedures to mitigate them, and maintaining a culture that prioritizes safety above all other workplace tasks.

Bruce Pegg, BA, MA, CPC, CFPC, Managing Editor, AAPC