By EMS1 Staff
WASHINGTON — New fact sheets containing H1N1 safety information for health care workers and medical settings were released on Monday by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
The sheets provide measures that individuals in the workplace can take to minimize exposure and transmission of the 2009 swine flu virus. Health care workers are also encouraged to take special precautions, with separate fact sheets available for those who maintain close contact with patients and individuals with suppressed immune systems.
The fact sheets are designed to provide helpful advice in preserving the health of America’s civilians and businesses, according to Jordan Barab, the acting assistant secretary of OSHA.
More detailed information, including the full fact sheets, can be found on OSHA’s “Workplace Safety and H1N1” Web site.
Among the workplace controls outlined in the precautions for health care activities are:
• Modify patient intake, triage and other service areas to increase space between workers, coworkers and patients (e.g., install partitions).
• If available, use airborne infection isolation rooms for aerosol-generating procedures and limit the number of people present during the procedure.
• Isolate and group 2009 H1N1 flu patients according to your facility’s procedures.
• Handle 2009 H1N1 flu specimens in Biosafety Level 2 equipment.
• Transport 2009 H1N1 flu patients in ambulances with separate ventilation systems for the driver and patient compartments or increase ventilation by operating the system in non-recirculation mode and letting in as much outdoor air as possible.
• Use closed suctioning systems to suction a patient’s airways and use high quality filters on the expiratory port of ventilators.