Why Healthcare Workers Take HAZWOPER Training
Why Healthcare Workers Take HAZWOPER Training
The Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response Standard (HAZWOPER) covers employees in various industries who have been exposed to hazardous substances or those who have potentially been exposed to them. One industry in particular where HAZWOPER training is important is healthcare. A variety of employee categories in this field deal with hazardous waste every day, including doctors, nurses and certified nursing assistants.
Daily Risks
Healthcare workers encounter a variety of chemicals and waste on a daily basis. They may work with blood, feces, urine, gases and medicines that can cause medical and contamination emergencies. HAZWOPER training helps employees identify hazardous chemicals, monitor medical emergencies, document emergency clean-up procedures and create health and safety procedures.
Proactive Education
Nurses, phlebotomists, doctors, certified nursing assistants and other health care employees need HAZWOPER training to keep them up-to-date and knowledgeable about how to handle chemical and waste spills or other contamination scenarios. This education also helps them prevent such situations. This knowledge can help prevent panic in emergency medical situations in which contamination of a disease or chemical can quickly spread.
Understanding Procedures
HAZWOPER training gives medical personnel the tools they need to lead and carry out decontamination procedures in an efficient and professional way. Without the ability to understand the causes of a potential contamination emergency and how to defuse and contain it, healthcare workers cannot properly do their jobs. Patients and the public depend on healthcare workers to have the knowledge and strength to help them through difficult medical emergencies.
Learning Proper Techniques
HAZWOPER training also provides healthcare employees with what they need to protect themselves from contamination. When they are in the thick of cleaning up a hazardous mess, they must be able to keep themselves out of harm's way. Knowing the proper techniques and procedures for protecting themselves is essential to keeping a contamination clean-up going and to complete it as completely as possible.
Training Requirements
Healthcare employees should complete the eight-hour course each year and keep themselves current on new information in the field of waste and chemical clean-up. To maintain a health environment for themselves and their co-workers, employees must complete the required federal training in HAZWOPER. Without it, they, their workplaces, colleagues, patients and the general public can be seriously endangered. With the right knowledge about waste and chemical contamination, however, they can protect everyone potentially affected by such an emergency. HAZWOPER training is essential to keeping healthcare workers and the public safe. It helps prevent medical emergencies and solve contamination problems should they occur. All healthcare workers should view this training as an important part of their professional development.
