Respiratory Protection Toolkit: Providing Guidance Without Changing Requirements-Can We Make an Impact?

Details

• Personal Author:
  Betcher CA ; Bien EA ; Gillespie GL ; Mingerink DR ; Thrasher TL
• Description:
  International travel and infectious respiratory illnesses worldwide place health care workers (HCWs) at increasing risk of respiratory exposures. To ensure the highest quality safety initiatives, one health care system used a quality improvement model of Plan-Do-Study-Act and guidance from Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) May 2015 Hospital Respiratory Protection Program (RPP) Toolkit to assess a current program. The toolkit aided in identification of opportunities for improvement within their well-designed RPP. One opportunity was requiring respirator use during aerosol-generating procedures for specific infectious illnesses. Observation data demonstrated opportunities to mitigate controllable risks including strap placement, user seal check, and reuse of disposable N95 filtering facepiece respirators. Subsequent interdisciplinary collaboration resulted in other ideas to decrease risks and increase protection from potentially infectious respiratory illnesses. The toolkit's comprehensive document to evaluate the program showed that while the OSHA standards have not changed, the addition of the toolkit can better protect HCWs. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Aerosols Hazardous Substances Health Personnel Occupational Health Personal Protective Equipment Respiratory Protective Devices Safety
• Keywords:
  Aerosol Particles Author Keywords: Plan, Do, Study, Act Face Masks Filters Health Care Personnel Health Care Workers Health Hazards Health Protection PDSA Quality Improvement Respiratory Protection Respiratory Protective Equipment

  More +
• ISSN:
  2165-0799
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Ohio ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  64
• Issue:
  12
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20049871
• Citation:
  Workplace Health Saf 2016 Dec; 64(12):596-602
• Contact Point Address:
  Elizabeth Ann Bien, MSN, RN, CNOR, College of Nursing, University of Cincinnati, P.O. Box 210038, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0038
• Email:
  EAMRNRN@aol.com
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2017
• Performing Organization:
  University of Cincinnati
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Workplace Health & Safety
• End Date:
  20260630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:b2cbb08be6992f0c88676bd9511fdd548c6b77b78577f517edf56a84ffecd56a55a1c86b262585447666afedb1ce169bb921d4e0ee9bfde72845c73dacdf2150
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/210468/cdc_210468_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 117.11 KB ]