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2003 SESSION

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HB 2790 Blood-borne pathogen hazards in the workplace; injury protection.

Introduced by: Robert H. Brink | all patrons    ...    notes | add to my profiles

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Blood-borne pathogen hazards in the workplace; needleless systems and engineered sharps injury protection. Requires the Safety and Health Codes Board to provide an emergency temporary standard, which must be followed by adoption of a permanent standard, that establishes protections for occupational exposure to blood-borne pathogens and must include requirements for engineered sharps injury protection and needleless systems and may include other mechanisms for preventing sharps injuries and exposure prone incidents such as training and education, vaccination recommendations, strategic handling and placement of sharps containers, and use of personal protective equipment. "Engineered sharps injury protection" is defined as a physical attribute (i) built into a needle device used for withdrawing body fluids, accessing a vein or artery or administering medications or other fluids that effectively reduces the risk of exposure to blood-borne pathogens by mechanisms, such as barriers, blunting, encapsulation, withdrawal, retraction, destruction or other effective protection; or (ii) built into any other type of needle device or into a nonneedle sharp that effectively reduces the risk of exposure to blood-borne pathogens. "Needleless system" is defined as a device that does not utilize needles that may be used for (i) withdrawal of body fluids after venous or arterial access has been established; (ii) administration of medication or fluids; or (iii) any other procedure that includes a risk of exposure to blood or other body fluids and, thereby, the risk of exposure to blood-borne pathogens. The State Health Commissioner is required to advise and provide technical aid to the Commissioner of Labor and Industry and to the Safety and Health Codes Board concerning occupational exposure to blood-borne pathogens and the use of engineered sharps injury protection and needleless systems. This assistance must include a list of available needleless systems and sharps with engineered sharps injury protection that can be developed from existing sources and must be made available to assist employers. Each employer having employees at risk for exposure to blood-borne pathogens through injury with sharps must (i) conduct product evaluations of needleless systems and sharps with engineered sharps injury protections and (ii) establish an evaluation committee, at least half of whom must be front-line health care workers. The product evaluations must include various devices such as I.V. catheters, I.V. access devices and I.V. connectors; vacuum-tube blood collection devices; blood-drawing devices such as phlebotomy needles and tube holders, butterfly-type devices, and syringes; syringes used for purposes other than blood drawing; suture needles; scalpel devices; and any other category of device having a sharps injury risk. The evaluation committee must represent all services and medical specialties in the facility and be charged with developing and revising as necessary a written exposure control plan that (i) identifies effective existing needleless systems and sharps with engineered sharps injury protection, (ii) determines by means of objective product evaluation criteria when use of such devices could jeopardize patient or employee safety and is not indicated for specific medical procedures, and (iii) includes a procedure for maintaining a sharps injury record with entries for incident dates and times, type and brand of the involved sharp and whether the sharp had engineered sharps injury protection and the status of such engineered sharps injury protection at the time of the incident; a detailed description of the incident that includes the injured employee's position, the location in the facility in which the incident occurred, the relevant procedure, the anatomical location of the employee's injury, and an analysis of how the incident could have been prevented. The Safety and Health Codes Board is required to promulgate emergency regulations to implement this provision, i.e., within 280 days of its enactment.


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