The deadly gunfire that erupted at a Minnesota medical clinic earlier this month sharpened the pangs of a Louisiana man’s grief even as it hardened his resolve to better protect health care workers from workplace violence. Gene Sausse owns a small business in New Orleans. He’s also the brother of a nurse who died almost two years ago in Baton Rouge from injuries sustained on the job. When a patient attacked another nurse, Lynne Sausse […]
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An unintended consequence of COVID-19 safety procedures has been a surge in trash, from face masks to gloves to, now, the discarded syringes and needles from COVID-19 vaccines. If laid end to end, the needles from the number of vaccine doses needed to inoculate the entire U.S. population—about 660 million—would create enough waste to wrap around the Earth 1.8 times, according to OnSite Waste Technologies, a medical waste disposal company. It’s certainly worthwhile trash to […]
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Tanveer Adyel began to notice the trash in March. This was early in the COVID-19 pandemic. He saw latex gloves and blue, disposable masks littering his garden and street. Other types of personal protective equipment, or PPE, including face shields, were also among the trash. Soon, he spotted lots of thin plastic bags from grocery stores. Those bags had been banned in his state the previous year. Adyel is an engineer at Monash University in […]
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The ramping up of vaccination for COVID-19 comes with rising concerns about bloodborne pathogen (BBP) exposure for vaccinators and the need for personal protective equipment (PPE), as well as steps to prevent needlestick injuries and other BBP program requirements. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that staff members at vaccination sites be provided with eye protection like goggles or face shields, gloves, and procedure face masks, but the federal PPE requirements for […]
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The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA is a challenging Act for thousands of companies in the United States. It sets the standard for sensitive patient data protection in the country. If your organization deals with sensitive healthcare data, ensuring HIPAA compliance is vital. In December 2020, the HHS had found organizations non-compliant with HIPAA in 69% of its investigations. So, even though compliance with the Act is time-consuming, it is also vital. […]
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