The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has released a new resource to help hospitals ensure the safety of their employees. The online resource is entitled Worker Safety in Hospitals: Caring for our Caregivers.
According to OSHA, the purpose of the resource is “to help hospitals assess workplace safety needs, implement safety and health management systems, and enhance their safe patient handling programs”. The hospital can be a hazardous work environment; in 2011, U.S. hospitals recoded 253,700 work-related injuries and illnesses.
The online resource is divided into three parts, Understanding the Problem, Safety and Health Management Systems, and Safe Patient Handling. The first two sections provide information on how and why hospitals can be hazardous to employees and methods to create a safety and health management system at your facility. These systems can help to decrease the occurrences of work-related injuries and illnesses.
The third section, Safe Patient Handling, is further divided into a number of sections with extensive information on the following topics:
MSD Assesment
Management Support
Policy/Program Development
Facility & Patient Needs Assessment
Facilitating Change
Safe Patient Handling Equipment
Education & Training
Program Evaluation
Additional Resources
EES has extensive experience in the field of hospital safety. We work with a number of hospital and healthcare facilities on OSHA compliance, as well as environmental compliance. We can help ensure that the worker safety program at your hospital is robust and effective. If you would like more information, please contact us here.