By Brent Doney, Mark Greskevitch, Dennis Groce, Girija Syamlal, Ki Moon B and Jacek Mazurek
The risk of developing respiratory infection can be reduced by either wearing respiratory protection under the guidance of an effective respiratory protection program or using controls. In 2001, the Survey of Respirator Use and Practices gathered information on the types of respirators used, respirator use practices, and the respirator program characteristics from 40,002 randomly selected U.S. establishments. This report presents findings of the survey for the health services industry and compares them with National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommendations.
Approximately 3.2 percent of all health services establishments required respirator use. Of the health services establishments that required respirator use:
• 82 percent of respirator-using establishments using gas/vapor filters did not have a written change-out schedule
• 70 percent did not provide the assessment or didn’t know if such an assessment was conducted
• 64 percent of establishments using airline respirators did not require such use of instructions or labels or didn’t know how airflow was adjusted
• 64 percent of airline respirator-using establishments did not assure the incompatibility of respirator couplings incompatible with other gas systems at the establishment; employees were not assessed or it wasn’t known if the employees were assessed in 70.4 percent for medical fitness to wear a respirator
• 60 percent did not include procedures for maintaining respirators or didn’t know if any procedures were included
• 58 percent had at least three indicators of a potentially inadequate respiratory protection program.
The high rates of indicators of potential inadequacies suggest widespread problems with respiratory protection programs in the health services industry, indicating a potential for improvement.
Objective
Healthcare workers have elevated mortality rates to respiratory infection. The risk of developing respiratory infection and other diseases for healthcare workers should be reduced by either wearing respiratory protection under the guidance of an effective respiratory protection program (RPP) or using controls. Of the health services establishments using respirators, more than half (58 percent), or an estimated 8,200 establishments, had three or more indicators of a potentially inadequate RPP. This report provides suggestions to correct inadequacies in RPPs to improve protection of healthcare workers to respiratory infections.
Introduction and Methods
In 2001, NIOSH and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) surveyed 40,002 randomly selected U.S. private industry establishments.1 The survey questionnaire was mailed by the BLS to the selected establishments during August 2001 through February 2002 and collected information on the types of respiratory protection used by workers at an establishment, assessment of medical fitness to wear respirators, types of respirator fit tests performed, and presence of substances that prompted the decision to use respiratory protection.1
The findings of the survey raised questions regarding respirator usage practices and how these practices compare with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations2 and NIOSH recommendations.3
This report focuses on information from the respirator use and practices survey collected from establishments in health services industry. This industry is comprised of offices and clinics of medical doctors and dentists, hospitals, medical and dental laboratories, home healthcare services, kidney dialysis centers and specialty outpatient facilities (Standard Industrial Classification 80).4
