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Is it worth the risk assessment?

Medical Environment Update, November 1, 2020

This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Medical Environment Update.

Editor’s note: In this guest column, Dan Scungio, MT(ASCP), SLS, laboratory safety officer for multihospital system Sentara Healthcare in Virginia, and otherwise known as “Dan, the Lab Safety Man,” discusses the important issues that affect your job every day.

As a safety professional, we know performing risk assessments is worth it—it’s an integral piece of managing a safety program. Assessing risks and identifying hazards are the first steps when approaching the management of any safety-related area. Risk assessments are the starting point for handling a bloodborne pathogens program, chemical hygiene, personal protective equipment, and many other lab matters. But how can you be sure they have been performed correctly, and how often should they be performed?

OSHA, too, says performing risk assessments is worth it. They state, "The employer shall assess the workplace to determine if hazards are present, or are likely to be present, which necessitate the use of personal protective equipment (PPE)."

This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Medical Environment Update.

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