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Hospitals and health care facilities have a great deal of practice at handling incidents where employees may be exposed to bloodborne pathogens. However, if you’re not working in a health care setting, chances are your employees aren’t as experienced in bloodborne pathogen incidents. Here are some tips to help prevent exposure incidents at your facility:

Make sure all employees have been trained to recognize what is (or is not) a bloodborne pathogen exposure and what to do to protect themselves to prevent exposure.

Make PPE readily available. First aid kits should, at a minimum, include a pair of gloves. If PPE for clean up (masks, aprons, goggles, face shields, etc.) isn’t regularly used at your facility, make sure that you have at least one complete set on site. Notify supervisors where the cleanup PPE is located and attach a label inside first aid kits that indicates the location of the PPE.

Provide anyone who will have responsibility for cleaning up after a bloodborne pathogen incident with appropriate training (including cleaning of tools-brooms, mops, scoops-used in clean up). Because employees are not likely to use these skills often, place a laminated sheet with cleanup instructions in your first aid kits as reminders.

Ensure that you have appropriate disinfectant available for clean up (generally, you’ll find that you have an “appropriate” disinfectant, like bleach, among your janitorial supplies so you don’t necessarily have to buy something special). Also, make sure that the disinfectant is accessible (e.g., if it’s kept in the janitor’s closet, someone on every shift has access to the closet and not just the janitor on the night shift).

Identify how you will store and dispose of waste from the incident that cannot go into the trash.

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Rathi Niyogi is the CEO of CriticalTool, a national distributor of Nitrile Gloves, Latex Gloves and other safety products. If you thought this article was helpful, additional information on gloves can be found at http://www.criticaltool.com/work-gloves.html

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