OSHA: Facilities should safeguard against winter hazards
Hospital Safety Insider, January 4, 2018
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Hospital Safety Insider!
During last weekend's nationwide chill and a few days before Winter Storm Grayson plowed through the Northeast, OSHA urged employees involved in snow removal and cleanup, and other workers who will spend extended periods of time outdoors, to take precautions to limit their exposure to serious hazards in nasty winter weather.
OSHA cited being struck by vehicles, carbon monoxide, hypothermia, and being injured by powered equipment as concerns for those tackling snow removal and cleanup.
But slips and falls on snow and ice are concerns for all employees, and patients, too. And that's not just a concern in parking lots, on walkways, and at the entrance of your hospital or clinic. Be sure to clean up any ice, snow, and puddles that may form inside your waiting room because slippery interior surfaces could also cause a slip or a fall.
OSHA cautioned that anyone who works outside for prolonged periods, which could include emergency first responders, could be at risk of cold stress and/or frostbite. Per OSHA, moderate to severe symptoms of cold stress include shivering stops, confusion, slurred speech, heart rate and breathing slowness, and loss of consciousness.
While OSHA does not have a specific standard that covers the safety of employees from all industries working in cold environments, its website states that "employers have a responsibility to provide workers with employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards, including winter weather-related hazards, which are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to them."
For those affected by the latest wave of cold and snow, stay warm and safe out there.
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Hospital Safety Insider!
Related Products
Most Popular
- Articles
-
- Don't forget the three checks in medication administration
- Note similarities and differences between HCPCS, CPT® codes
- Complications from immobility by body system
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- Q&A: Primary, principal, and secondary diagnoses
- The consequences of an incomplete medical record
- Differentiate between types of wound debridement
- Nursing responsibilities for managing pain
- Practice the six rights of medication administration
- ICD-10-CM coma, stroke codes require more specific documentation
- E-mailed
-
- Correctly bill ancillary bedside procedures in addition to the room rate
- Q&A: Utilization Review Committee Membership
- Q&A: Bill blood administration the same way for inpatient and outpatient accounts
- Q&A: A second look at encephalopathy as integral to seizures/CVA
- Performing a SWOT analysis
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- Know the medical gas cylinder storage requirements
- Intravenous therapy guidelines
- Coding, billing, and documentation tips for teaching physicians, interns, residents, and students
- Coding tip: Watch for different codes for SI joint injections
- Searched