Authors
Huy-J; Palermo-T; Storey-E
Source
Practical Patient Care 2009 Mar; :1-5
Abstract
Exposures to blood and other body fluids occur across a wide variety of occupations. Preventing these exposures is one important step in ensuring a safe working environment for healthcare providers and ancillary occupations, and complements healthcare systems' patient safety and infection control efforts. Combining strategies for achieving patient safety and healthcare worker safety ultimately lead to quality healthcare, and quality patient care is the utmost goal of healthcare delivery systems. It is equally important for healthcare personnel to be safe, and healthcare delivery systems should be aware of the practices that promote patient and worker safety. Reducing the transmission of infections from patients to healthcare personnel and from personnel to patients is another component of a safe and healthy healthcare environment.
Keywords
Biohazards; Biological-effects; Biological-factors; Biological-material; Biological-transport; Bloodborne-pathogens; Body-fluids; Emergency-responders; Emergency-treatment; Exposure-assessment; Exposure-levels; Exposure-limits; Health-care-facilities; Health-care-personnel; Health-hazards; Health-programs; Health-science-personnel; Health-services; Infection-control; Infectious-diseases; Nursing; Occupational-accidents; Occupational-exposure; Occupational-hazards; Occupational-health; Occupational-health-nursing; Occupational-health-programs; Occupational-health-services; Occupational-safety-programs; Physical-reactions; Physicians; Nurses; Risk-factors; Work-environment; Worker-health; Work-performance; Workplace-studies; Work-practices