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Compliance Directive for Bloodborne Pathogens Standard Updated
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued a new compliance directive
for enforcing the bloodborne pathogens standard that was revised in January.
The standard became effective on April 18.
The compliance directive guides OSHA's safety and health inspection officers
in enforcing the standard that covers occupational exposure to blood and other
potentially infectious materials, and ensures consistent inspection procedures
are followed. It updates an earlier directive issued in 1999 and incorporates
changes mandated by the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act passed in November
2000.
The directive implements changes made to the standard that focus on the requirement
that employers select safer needle devices as they become available and involve
employees in identifying and choosing those devices. The standard now also requires
most employers to maintain a log of injuries from contaminated sharps.
The directive highlights the major new requirements of the standard including:
(1) evaluation and implementation of safer needle devices as part of the re-evaluation
of appropriate engineering controls during an employer's annual exposure
control plan; (2) documentation of the involvement on non-managerial, frontline
employees in choosing safer devices; and (3) establishment and maintenance of
a sharps injury log for recording injuries from contaminated sharps.
Compliance officers are reminded that no one safer medical device is appropriate
for all situations; employers must consider and implement devices that are appropriate,
commercially available and effective. The directive also includes detailed instructions
on inspections of multi-employer worksites, including employment agencies, personnel
services, home health services, physicians and healthcare professionals in independent
practices, and independent contractors.
Also included in the directive are engineering control evaluation forms, a web
site resource list, a model exposure control plan which incorporates the most
current guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control regarding management
of occupational exposure to the hepatitus B and C viruses, and the HIV virus.
The directive can be accessed from the OSHA website at www.osha-sic.gov/OshDoc/Directive_data/CPL_2-2_69.html
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