Kevin Noel

Required Medical Waste Trainings and Safety Plans

An essential part of compliance is keeping staff up to date on all training and certifications and maintaining your safety plans.

Required Medical Waste Trainings and Safety Plans

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Required Medical Waste Trainings and Safety Plans

An essential part of compliance is keeping staff up to date on all training and certifications and maintaining your safety plans.

Not only does training decrease the chance of injury among staff, but the penalties can be… monumental.

For example, a USPS was fined almost $350k after inspections revealed workers were exposed to bloodborne pathogen hazards.

Read along to make sure you have all of the documents you need to and would be readily available to display those documents in the event of an inspection or emergency.

OSHA Bloodborne Pathogens

Required Medical Waste Trainings and Safety Plans

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration implements standards which ensure safe working conditions that decrease the risk of injury.

In order to be in compliance with OSHA Bloodborne Pathogens Standards you should:

✔ Ensure staff with occupational exposure to bloodborne pathogens undergoes annual training

✔ Make the hepatitis B vaccine available to all employees with occupational exposure

✔ Have an exposure control plan and update it annually to reflect changes and improvements

✔ Implement work practice controls

✔ Maintain records for every employee

The purpose of the bloodborne pathogens standard under OSHA is to reduce the risk of exposure to blood or other potentially infectious materials which have been known to cause harm. Exposure to infectious wastes can result in health hazards like Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, and HIV and OSHA’s standards help to protect your workforce from medical waste related injuries.

DOT RMW Training

Required Medical Waste Trainings and Safety Plans

The Department of Transportation regulates the transportation of regulated medical waste. Anyone involved in the transportation of medical waste (including preparing, packaging, or signing medical waste manifests) must take DOT Regulated Medical Waste Training.

This training ensures regulated medical waste is properly segregated, packaged, and labeled to protect public health and the environment from hazards such as medical waste.

This training must be completed within 90 days of assignment and must be completed every 3 years afterwards.

Hazard Communication

Required Medical Waste Trainings and Safety Plans

Anyone with hazardous chemicals in their work area must complete Hazard Communication Training and the facility with hazardous chemicals must have a Hazardous Communication Program and copies of their SDS for each hazardous chemical in the workplace.

The purpose of this training is to reduce injuries caused by chemical hazards and ensure staff can properly identify, evaluate, and communicate workplace hazards. The training ensures that staff knows the hazards of the chemicals in their workplace, knows the appropriate personal protective equipment for handling each hazard, knows where emergency equipment is, can find safety data sheets, understands labels and symbols, and knows what to do in the event of an injury.

This must be completed prior to dealing with hazardous chemicals or when new hazards are introduced into the workplace.

Documentation of Trainings and Certificates

All certificates from training should be retained for 3 years from the date of training.

The training record should include the date, contents of the training sessions, names and job titles of those who attended, and the qualifications of the instructor(s).

Other Safety Plans and Trainings for Healthcare

Some of the other healthcare training and safety plans you need do not involve medical waste as much as the others, but are crucial nonetheless. 

Below is a resource of healthcare trainings and safety plans Eco Medical offers:

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Eco Medical CEO

KEVIN NOEL

Sales Account Executive

Passionate about creating exposure around practical products and services. My goal is to aid California medical facilities in exploring a more local, affordable, and personable service for medical waste disposal.

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