In healthcare, if it’s not documented, it’s not done—including lab safety. If you want to cover all the safety steps and be able to prove that those steps were taken, providing lab staff with easy and effective ways to complete documentation is essential. As more recordkeeping becomes digital...
This is the second part of our story on managing your laboratory waste streams to reduce costs and improve safety. In this part of the interview, we will go over common waste mistakes and advice, along with your responsibility over your waste and when it ends.
In laboratory safety circles, one of the most overlooked aspects is preparedness for hazardous chemical spills. While hospital labs are well equipped to handle day-to-day safety concerns, they often lack readiness for rare but high-risk events—such as fires, chemical spills, or emergency...
Regular trash is bad enough, but the things that laboratories throw out are dangerous as well as egregious: used needles and sharps, body fluids, caustic chemicals, and items that will burst into flames in the right conditions. Lab staff can be injured by improper disposal of chemical waste, but...
In this guest column, Dan Scungio, MT(ASCP), SLS, laboratory safety officer for multihospital system Sentara Healthcare in Virginia, and otherwise known as “Dan, the Lab Safety Man,” discusses the important issues that affect your job every day. Today he discussed emergency preparedness.
While safety procedures in the lab do take time to follow, they improve productivity in the long run by reducing employee accidents and injuries. While productivity and safety can clash, it’s also possible for them to unite.
This story looks at some of the common PPE mistakes or misconceptions laboratories should be striving to eliminate in 2025, as well as how to battle PPE complacency.
Personal electronic devices—cell phones, smartwatches, earbuds, etc.—have become ubiquitous in our lives, but their use in laboratory environments poses significant safety risks. For hospital labs, which handle sensitive specimens and play a critical role in patient care, the challenge lies in...
There are many great quotes about leadership, but none specifically about being an excellent laboratory safety officer. The absence in popular media of brave lab officers giving rousing speeches to staff on banding together and wearing their PPE to keep OSHA at bay is an oversight that will need...
When it comes to PPE and the role it plays in lab safety, little more can be said about its importance that the healthcare industry hasn’t already expressed. Lab coats, goggles, gloves, and face shields are all necessary for preventing staff injuries and exposure. The science is clear that...
