Environmental Health and Safety

Description

USP <800> provides standards for safe handling of hazardous drugs (HD) to minimize the risk of exposure to healthcare personnel, patients, and the environment. The training describes practice and quality standards for HDs to promote patient safety, worker safety, and environmental protection. Handling HDs includes, but is not limited to, the receipt, storage, compounding, dispensing, administration, and disposal of sterile and nonsterile products and preparations in pharmacies, hospitals and other healthcare institutions, patient treatment clinics, physicians' practice facilities, or veterinarians' offices. Personnel who may potentially be exposed to HDs include, but are not limited to: pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, nurses, physicians, physician assistants, home healthcare workers, veterinarians, and veterinary technicians. This course fulfills the requirement for employees who must complete appropriate training and testing every 12 months.

Hazardous Drugs include those used for chemotherapy, antiviral drugs, hormones, bioengineered drugs, and some others. HDs exhibit one or more of the following characteristics: carcinogenicity, teratogenicity or developmental toxicity, reproductive toxicity, organ toxicity at low doses, genotoxicity, or structure and toxicity profiles of new drugs that mimic existing hazardous drugs.

Medical surveillance is recommended for workers who routinely handle HDs because it may lead to early detection of health problems caused by exposure to these agents. It may also help uncover issues within a facility, such as inadequate procedures for handling HDs or lack of compliance to established procedures, ineffective or misused engineering controls or PPE, or weaknesses in employee training programs. The primary purpose of medical surveillance is to minimize adverse health effects from exposure to HDs. Check with your supervisor or with OSU’s Occupational Health Services to determine whether you need to enroll in a medical surveillance program.