Bill Summary
PURPOSE: This bill would correct a dangerous problem in today's health care system in which health care workers suffer preventable needlestick injuries because appropriate technologies to prevent such injuries are not being utilized.
The bill would require the use of engineered safety mechanisms for needles and sharps in the health care arena to protect health care workers from life-threatening injuries caused by needlesticks and other sharps injuries.
OSHA AMENDMENT: The bill amends OSHA's bloodborne pathogens standard to require that employers utilize needleless systems and sharps with engineered sharps protections to prevent the spread of bloodborne pathogens in their workplace.
In carrying out this requirement, employers are to work with direct care health care workers who use such devices to ensure the appropriate selection of technology.
EXCEPTIONS: Safe needle technology will not be immediately, universally available and appropriate for all uses in the health care arena. Recognizing this fact, the bill provides for an exceptions process if an employer can demonstrate circumstances in which the technology:
Does not promote employee safety
Interferes with patient
safety
Interferes with the success of a medical procedure
Is not
commercially available in the marketplace
EXPOSURE CONTROL PLAN: Employers would develop written exposure control plans to identify and select existing needleless systems and sharps with engineered sharps protections and other methods of preventing the spread of bloodborne pathogens.
SHARPS INJURY LOG: While we know that more than 800,000 health care workers suffer needlesticks every year, there is currently no uniform collection of data on sharps injuries to enable these incidents to be tracked, learned from, and prevented.
The bill would create a sharps injury log that employers would keep containing detailed information about any sharps injuries that occur.
TRAINING: Employers would be required to adequately train direct care heath care workers on the use of needleless technologies and systems with engineered sharps protections.
NATIONAL CLEARINGHOUSE ON SAFER NEEDLE TECHNOLOGY: The bill would establish a new clearinghouse within the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to collect data on engineered safety technology designed to help prevent the risk of needlesticks and other sharps injuries. NIOSH would have access to the sharps injury logs in order to carry out these duties. The clearinghouse would also create model training curriculum for employers and health care workers. In order to carry out these new tasks, the institute is authorized $15 million in new funding.
APPLICATION TO MEDICARE HOSPITALS: HHS would promulgate new
regulations regarding conditions of participation in Medicare for those
hospitals that are not covered by OSHA so that all hospitals across the country
would, in effect, be covered by these new bloodborne pathogens requirements.
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