Prevention
What OSHA and NIOSH already tell employers to do
This page is a map to official guidance, not a new rulebook. The agencies that regulate and research workplace safety have already written the playbooks. We point to them.
Start here
- OSHA Health Care topic page — violence, patient handling, infectious disease, and other health-care hazards.
- NIOSH health-care worker pages — research and practical risk-factor guidance.
- NIOSH risk factors for health-care workers — hazardous drugs, infectious agents, chemicals, and work stress.
By hazard
- Violence: OSHA workplace violence in health care and OSHA Publication 3148 (2015).
- Patient handling: OSHA safe patient handling.
- Sharps: OSHA Bloodborne Pathogens standard.
- Mental health: CDC Vital Signs recommendations for supportive workplaces.
A plain-language pattern those documents share
- Find the hazards with the people who do the work, not only with a clipboard tour.
- Fix the system first: lifts, safer sharps, staffing for transfers, violence-prevention procedures.
- Train for the unit you actually work on.
- Make reporting safe. A log that scares people into silence is not a safety program.
None of this is a substitute for the regulations that apply to your workplace, or for advice from a clinician or an attorney.