Employer respirator policy: You can’t have your cake and eat it too
Employers who want it both both ways from employees on respiratory protection are getting under my skin…better make that under my N95 respirator.
It wasn’t so long ago that when I explained to healthcare employers that the use of disposable N95 respirators required a written respiratory protection plan that included, among other things, medical evaluation and fit testing they responded as if I were crazy: “That’s ridiculous. They’re throwaway masks; why would you need fit testing much less evaluations?”
Well, it’s not a mask; it’s a respirator and subject to the OSHA standard.
Now, I suspect, these same employers who thought so little of the flimsy N95, are trying to squeeze blood out of stone by requiring employees to wear or re-use the N95 respirators well beyond their intended use. (See the recently posted FDA FAQ on personal protective equipment for pandemic influenza which cautions against the routine extended use or reuse of disposable N95s.)
I hear about policies where employees have to preserve and protect these once “throwaway masks” as if they were the family jewels. Wear them for a full shift; reuse and store them in a zip lock bag; keep them for a whole year, in some cases; woe to you if you ask for a replacement before it falls apart in your hands.
I know the economy is bad and we’re responding every which way to the influenza A (H1N1), but what part of the definition of disposable is so hard to understand?
Does respirator parsimony disturb you, or are you just happy to have the protection? Let us know in the comment section below.
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David LaHoda
David LaHoda, the managing editor of Medical Environment Update and OSHA Watch, has produced healthcare training videos and consulted for medical practices and ambulatory healthcare facilities.
David has written 187 posts.
Comments
Do you think that people will suddenly think that fit testing of disposable N-95s is a great idea because you are condescending and blowing our concerns off the map?
See your attached 3M 1860 guidance for the reason some may be allowing staff to reuse – according to manufacturers instructions and facility IC guidelines.
Please comment on the CDC ‘emergency use consideration’ of late April, 2009 that said fit testing would not be required – it has since been pulled.
The purpose of my post was to simply raise safety concerns and elicit comments such as yours. The tone was not intended to be condescending, but rather draw attention to what many might consider a timely and important healthcare safety issue.
As to the CDC emergency use consideration change, it is in keeping with OSHA regulations, so there is nothing new there. Of course the CDC and OSHA have been encouraging healthcare facilities to prepare for this type situation for years to avoid the possible compromising of worker safety due to preparedness procrastination and the safety pitfalls inherent in instant influenza pandemic plans.
As evidence that healthcare facilities might be stretching the limits of disposable N95 reuse, check out the comment to the “N95 respirator reuse” post.
I tell employees reuse of N95 depends on length of use and proper storage: wearing it for longer than 15-20 minutes at a time cause it to become wet with moisture from exhalations, impairing its performance. Therefor it needs to be replaced until dry. I like employees who enter rooms frequently and stay for a length of time to have two masks – one to wear the other to dry. They should be stored in simple paper bags in an area that does not allow folding, spindling or mutilating of the mask (OUT of their locker!), not to wear it from patient to patient and discard them at the end of the day if they have been worn for a total of more than 3 hours (seldom happens!)
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