Fingernails, food, and beards
“… I can’t believe anyone would wear artificial nails in the lab…”
By David Harbaugh, from the Complete Guide to Lab Safety, 2nd Edition
Hopefully your lab doesn’t look like the one pictured above. If it does, you might need more help than just this post.
Regardless, with regulations, annual training and education, and constant surveillance, it’s easy to forget even the simplest work practices that keep lab workers, healthcare workers and patients safe.
For example, food and drink shouldn’t be anywhere near blood or other infectious materials. That means it shouldn’t be stored in the same refrigerators or freezers, and definitely not on the same shelves or in drawers. The best way to address this issue is with the proper signage on refrigerators, but also bear in mind that the employee break room or lunch room should be enclosed and separate from the lab. Although there is no data that shows aerosols could contaminate food through open doors, it’s best to play it safe.
A common safety hazard arises with employees wearing artificial nails, which can cause gloves to rip or tear. In fact, fingernails should be no longer than a quarter inch. Obviously you don’t need to walk around with a ruler, but be especially mindful of artificial nails, which continue to be a surprisingly persistent safety and infection control problem.
Finally, hair long hair should always be tied back to prevent contamination and to keep it out of medical equipment. Caution the men in your facility against “mountain man” beards. Facial hair should be under an inch in length for both infection control (bacteria and skin fungi could be present in oversized beards) and safety purposes.
If you’d like to know some more common infection control problems that are easy to fix, check out this audio.
Have any other simple safety pointers? Give us your suggestions below.
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Terry Jo Gile
Terry Jo Gile, MT(ASCP), MA Ed.,The Safety Lady® has more than 40 years experience as a certified medical technologist. As president of her own consulting firm, Safety Lady LLC, she is a world renowned speaker and consultant who helps organizations create safety savvy laboratories. Click the links to visit her Web site and her blog.
Terry Jo has written 49 posts.
Comments
Is there an OSHA requirement for fingernail length or artificial nails in the healthcare setting?
There is not an OSHA fingernail length requirement since it is more of an infection control and patient safety issue. The CDC hand hygiene guidelines recommends keeping natural nails tips less than 1/4-inch long.
What about gel nails versus artificial nails. Do gel nails pose less of a problem than artificial nails?
I am a Medical Assistant Instructor. We have many young ladies who are less than happy about shortening their artificial nails. Please tell me where can I find the articles I heard about,(unless they were “Urban Legends”) about the NICU Nurse whose nails poked through the gloves, and the bacteria from under her nails gave some babies life threatening/fatal? infections.
I was told it was in a JAMA magazine. Or, can you refer me to other sources? Thanks.
See reference 350, Moolenaar RL, Crutcher M, San Joaquin VH, et al. A prolonged outbreak of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in a neonatal intensive care unit: did staff fingernails play a role in disease transmission? Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2000;21:80–5, in Guideline for Hand Hygiene in Health-Care Settings. You might and to print out the “Other Policies Related to Hand Hygiene: Fingernails and Artificial Nails,” section and recommendations from the Guideline on pages 29 and 33, respectively.
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