Case Studies: When Waste and Safety Meet, Challenges in Healthcare

Case Studies: When Waste and Safety Meet, Challenges in Healthcare

Do you think healthcare is a nice safe place to work? Nothing dangerous going on there, right? It’s just doctors and nurses taking care of patients isn’t it? According to OSHA, more workers are injured in the healthcare and social assistance industry sector than any other and it has one of the highest rates of work related injuries and illnesses. There’s a lot more than just patient care going on at a healthcare facility and thus many unique opportunities for the environmental health and safety professional to exercise his or her skills. Challenges include chemicals, infectious agents, radioactive materials, material handling, electrical, hazardous waste, various physical hazards and the list goes on. In our combined 40+ years of healthcare environmental health and safety experience, we’ve seen and tackled many opportunities. There’s usually more going on in a situation than any one person will recognize so we work together, across departmental lines. Our collaborative approach provides us better, more comprehensive solutions to these unique opportunities without creating new problems. Using photos and descriptions, this presentation takes an in depth look at some of the real life scenarios we’ve encountered and solved to create an interactive experience for the audience. Did we get it right? What would you do? Come ready to investigate and participate as we explore the unique environmental health and safety challenges of healthcare. What challenges have you faced? We’ll take some time to discuss a few.