Archive for: June, 2009
Laboratory recordkeeping requirements
Since this blog began there have been a number of questions regarding record keeping. OSHA requires specific records for laboratories, each with designated retention, so keeping track of them can be tricky.
But these records are a requirement during an inspection. ISO 15189: 2003 contains specific requirements for medical labs, but these standards are not required by law. Therefore you must pay particular attention to recordkeeping requirements from federal authorities such as OSHA and the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as the Joint Commission and CAP if you are an accredited facility.
Thoughts from the APIC conference
For those of you who didn’t make it to the APIC conference last week, or for those who did and didn’t make it to all the sessions they wanted to, here are a few of my own thoughts from last week.
Obviously there was quite a bit of education surrounding pandemic planning and how hospitals and government agencies reacted to the H1N1 outbreaks. Even before the World Health Organization declared an official pandemic, many of us were worried about what the fall might bring.
Notes from the field: “Why are you standing on the ledge under the sink cabinet?”
As I was walking past an exam room last week during an inspection, I couldn’t believe what I seeing.
One of the medical assistants (MA) was too short to reach the wall mounted sharps container, so she opened the under the sink cabinet door, stood on the ledge, reached up over her head, and put the used safety device in the sharps container.
Weekly Poll: The future of H1N1
Last week the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the influenza pandemic alert to phase six, indicating the world is now at the beginning of the 2009 influenza pandemic.
Although the WHO considers the overall severity of the pandemic to be moderate, the organization is concerned about the pattern of serious cases and deaths, particularly among young, healthy adults. Additionally health experts are closely watching the southern hemisphere to see how the strain affects the traditional flu season. Many have said that combination of seasonal flu and H1N1 could create a more severe concoction.
What do you think?
Just for laughs, what’s wrong with this picture?
A scrub team member wearing lime green Crocs with ventilation holes stands in a puddle of some nasty-looking fluid next to an operating room table.
Before that gets your OSHA and infection control hackles up, relax. It’s a cartoon, but one with more than just a little bit of truth to it.
An interesting appeal process
After making the required changes and paying more than $31,000 in fines levied against them by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA), UCLA has appealed state regulators’ findings regarding the fatal burning of a laboratory research assistant last year, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Way out-of-the-box thinking: Safety soda machines
Safety training is wherever you can find it, or in some cases, wherever you can imagine it.
An article on the HealthLeaders Media web site looks at breaking free of the ubiquitous product placement presence of Coke and Pepsi on soda vending machines in lunch rooms and replacing it with something more useful, a safety message, perhaps.
More unsafe injection aftermath in Vegas
In case you’ve been keeping up with the backlash following the unsafe injection practices that occurred in a Las Vegas clinic back in October 2008, there’s another chapter to this story.
The Gastrointestinal Diagnostic Clinic, an endoscopy clinic that was shut down after more than 105 cases of hepatitis C were traced back to the facility, is suing Dr. Scott Young, the anesthesiologist at the clinic, according to the Las Vegas Sun. Owners Drs. Luis Tupac, Uday Saraiya and Enrique Lacayo claim that Young is responsible for the clinic’s revoked license.
A breathalyzer test for your hands
A new technology using the same sensors that detect alcohol on your breath, is being used to detect alcohol on your hands; except in this instance, the higher your level, the better.
HyGreen, which was developed by Dr. Richard J. Melker, a University of Florida College of Medicine anesthesiology professor, along with professors Dr. Donn Dennis, and Dr. Nikolaus Gravenstein, of the anesthesiology department, and Christopher Batich, a materials science professor in the College of Engineering, aims to not only help improve hand hygiene compliance, but also reduce HAIs.
When healthcare workers fear for their own health
A thoughtful “Doctor and Patient” article by Pauline W. Chen, MD, in The New York Times, May 21, raises an issue that I think is never too far removed from the minds of healthcare professionals.
“I believe it’s a privilege, a calling, to take care of patients. And I believe that in deciding to practice medicine, I have consented to an unspoken contract with the public, one that requires that I take care of those who are sick. Lately, however, I have also begun to think that there is another side to that contract. Maybe there are obligations that the general public has to its health care workers,” writes Dr. Chen.
