Bloodborne Pathogens: Understanding Controls
Your employer will put into place safe work practices, procedures, tools, and equipment (controls) to help guide and protect you from bloodborne pathogens. These are disease-causing germs carried in blood and other body fluids. But your employer's controls only work if you use them. Learn your employer's controls. Then follow them to help protect yourself.
Work practice controls
Work practice controls are procedures designed to help keep you safe on the job. They protect you from exposure and infection. For example, universal precautions (treating all blood and body fluid as potentially infectious) is a work practice control that helps protect you from bloodborne germs after an accident. Such controls can also help stop accidents from happening in the first place.
Engineering controls
These are tools that your employer provides that can help protect you from bloodborne germs. Engineering controls may involve:
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Bags or containers marked with the biohazard symbol for materials that are infected with blood or body fluids.
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Tongs, pans, brooms, and other items that help you avoid touching potentially infected materials while cleaning up.
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Cones and other markers to clearly identify areas where an accident has taken place.
Personal protective equipment (PPE)
Your employer provides PPE to help shield your skin, eyes, mouth, and nose from blood and body fluids. Types of PPE are:
Most PPE items are meant to be used once and thrown away. Discard used PPE the right way by following your employer's instructions for using properly marked biohazard bags or containers.
Know the action plan
Your employer may have an emergency action plan that outlines what to do in case of an accident. In any workplace, you should know your employer's safety procedures and what to do if an accident happens.