Articles Tagged With: OSHA
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OSHA Urged to Protect HCWs from Airborne COVID-19
The healthcare community is pushing back against OSHA adopting a more flexible final COVID-19 rule that could change with public health guidelines. The agency is finalizing its Emergency Temporary Standard to protect healthcare workers from COVID-19. -
Federal Healthcare Violence Law in Congress: If Not Now, When?
The longstanding problem of patients and visitors attacking and verbally abusing healthcare workers has been worsened by the chaos and cultural divisiveness of the COVID-19 pandemic. If federal lawmakers cannot find a way to better protect healthcare workers now, will they ever? -
OSHA Urged to Break with CDC in Finalizing COVID-19 Regulation
Despite pleas for flexibility by infection control groups, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is being urged by one of its more prominent former directors to adopt a tough standard that emphasizes airborne precautions to protect healthcare workers from COVID-19.
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OSHA Finalizing COVID-19 Rule in Healthcare Settings
Under the CDC's current guidance for healthcare workers, many requirements for those workers are triggered based on the level of community transmission of COVID-19. Such an approach would create the flexibility many have been calling for, which have come with the warning that requirements set in regulatory stone could quickly be outdated by the changing nature of the pandemic.
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OSHA Updates Stance on COVID-19 Vaccination Requirements
OSHA is reopening the rulemaking record to allow for new data and comments on the Emergency Temporary Standard issued June 21, 2021, intended to protect workers in healthcare settings from occupational exposure to COVID-19. -
OSHA Inspecting Hospitals for Compliance with COVID-19 Issues
OSHA’s COVID-19 Focused Inspection Initiative in Healthcare is underway, with inspectors visiting hospitals and other healthcare facilities to determine compliance with requirements related to the pandemic. -
OSHA Finalizing COVID-19 Rule in Healthcare Settings
OSHA has briefly reopened comments and slated a public hearing for April 27 as it moves to finalize its Emergency Temporary Standard to protect healthcare workers from COVID-19. -
OSHA Announces COVID Inspections in Hospitals, SNFs
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has announced a temporary increase in “focused” inspections of hospitals and skilled nursing facilities that treat or handle COVID-19 patients.
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HCW Injuries, Illness Off the Charts in 2020
Healthcare workers in the United State experienced a more than twofold increase in injury and illness rates in 2020, the first year of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. -
Tips for Passing an OSHA Bloodborne Pathogen Inspection
The Bloodborne Pathogens Standard has been on the books for decades. But exposure control plans — the principal component of compliance — should be viewed as a “living document” that changes over time, a needlestick prevention expert noted.