OSHA Articles

As a manager in a medical office or clinic, you are certainly aware of the risks to your staff posed by medical waste, as well as the OSHA regulations that address that risk. Complying with OSHA’s guidelines for medical waste management in the workplace is essential to minimizing risks to employees, protecting their health and safety. It is also essential to protecting your facility against the legal and financial consequences of compliance mistakes. To make things a bit easier, here are a few important steps to help ensure OSHA medical waste compliance in your workplace.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established a comprehensive regulatory program in 1976 to ensure that hazardous waste is managed correctly from the time it is created, through transport, treatment, storage, and until it is disposed. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) provides the framework for hazardous waste management and qualified states are authorized to administer and enforce the RCRA program within the state.

It’s important that you manage your hazardous waste in accordance with all state and federal regulations. The degree of regulation that applies is dependent on the amount of waste you produce; however, anyone who generates, accumulates, stores, transports, or treats hazardous waste must receive training. When rules change, updated training should be provided. Your hazardous waste personnel are required to complete appropriate training to become familiar with proper hazardous waste management as well as emergency procedures for wastes handled at your facility.

As part of your medical office’s waste management plan, and to maintain compliance with state and federal regulations, you must maintain training records. You are required to keep detailed documents of the training that your employees receive to minimize their exposure to infectious agents. Your documents must describe how your staff was trained to recognize regulated medical waste and to properly manage it.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was created with the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 to ensure worker and workplace safety. In addition to setting and enforcing standards, the agency provides training, outreach, education, and assistance. There are many risks associated with OSHA violations, such as potential chemical and drug exposures, fire and electrical hazards, respiratory hazards, and others. OSHA standards require that you train your employees in the safety and health aspects of their jobs to ensure that they do not get hurt.

Proper training is a critical activity for any medical facility, but how do you manage it effectively when you must attend to budget and scheduling pressures daily? Partnering with a compliant local medical waste service provider can be a great way to maintain training requirements, especially when they offer convenient online training solutions.

Determining whether your medical office meets Alabama’s medical waste regulations can be a daunting and time-consuming task. So we have compiled this information in a way for you to quickly spot areas that may need attention for your office to be compliant with Alabama’s state guidelines and regulations. In this post you will find a general overview of medical office requirements. To ensure your compliance, you will need to visit the site links that we have provided. In addition, your medical waste services provider can help you determine if you are in compliance.