When you think about workplace safety in a hospital, a lot of potential hazards probably come to mind. Biohazards, chemical hazards, and even workplace violence are all common workplace hazards.
What about electrical hazards? Did they make the list?
In this article, we’ll go over the importance of practicing safety precautions in handling electric devices or how to prevent patients from electrical shock exposure, and other safety considerations you should think about at work.
WHY IS ELECTRICAL SAFETY IMPORTANT?
OSHA recognizes electrical hazards as a serious threat to life and health in the workplace. Electricity can cause serious injury or death when it’s not safely managed.
In fact, electrical hazards are one of the leading causes of workplace fatalities and injuries in the United States. The majority of electricity-related fatalities are workers in non-electrical occupations.
The healthcare industry needs to conduct electrical hazard assessments, develop prevention and response protocols, and train their employees in electrical hazard safety in order to reduce the risk.
IS HOSPITAL ELECTRICAL SAFETY REALLY A PROBLEM?
Hospital electrical safety is more precarious than you might think simply because the hospital ecosystem has a lack of knowledge about the proper precautions.
OSHA’s electrical standard applies to healthcare facilities, requiring all electrical equipment to be factory-certified or NRTL tested. However, hospitals and other facilities experience a unique lack of enforcement because The Joint Commission (TJC) doesn’t regulate the level of electrical certification in hospitals. They leave decisions about the safety certification of equipment to the individual facility, so the industry has no consistently applied standard.
To make matters worse, individual facilities may not even control equipment procurement. Hospitals may contract out biomedical engineering services, and those third-party providers may not include electrical safety in their decisions. In-house procurement may be ignorant of the indicators that equipment has OSHA-mandated electrical safety certification or testing.
WHAT ARE ELECTRICAL HAZARDS?
Electricity and electrical equipment can present many safety hazards to personnel and patients.
OSHA’s electrical hazards definition includes any serious workplace hazard that exposes workers to Burns, Electrocution, Shock, Arc Flash or Blast, Fire, and Explosions, which creates the acronym BE SAFE.
Burns are the most common electricity-related injury, which can result from either shock, arc flash, or thermal contact (when the skin comes in contact with overheated electric equipment).
Electrocution is a fatal injury that results from exposure to a lethal amount of electrical energy.
Shock is a reflex response to the passage of electric current through the body.
An arc flash is the sudden release of electrical energy through the air. Arc flashes can cause high-temperature burns, and when arcs have enough voltage, they can also rapidly heat the air, resulting in pressure waves that form a blast.
Electrical hazards can also start fires – or even cause explosions if the electricity encounters combustible gases, vapors, mists, or airborne dust.
WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF ELECTRICAL HAZARDS?
According to OSHA, electrical hazards can spring from a number of conditions in the workplace. Examples of the causes of electrical hazards that may appear in hospitals include:
- Improper grounding
- Exposed electrical parts
- Inadequate wiring
- Damaged insulation
- Overloaded circuits
- Damaged equipment
- Unsafe work practices
ELECTRICAL HAZARDS: EXAMPLES FROM A HOSPITAL
While a lot of general electrical equipment is designed to protect users from exposure to electrical energy, the purpose of commonly-used hospital equipment is often the opposite. That makes it even easier for electrical injury to occur.
Defibrillators, for example, are designed to deliver a controlled shock to the human body. Electrical shock to healthcare workers can result from faulty equipment, accidental discharge, and equipment mishandling. Defibrillators also get used near flammable materials during oxygen, though the risk of starting a fire is historically rare.
Another example is that patients can sustain burns when electrical monitoring devices are used during MRIs, most often from ECG electrodes. However, pulse oximeters and MRI coils have also caused burns.
More traditional electrical hazards are also present in hospitals.
Incidents during the use of individual devices are one category. Sometimes these occur as a result of unsafe work practices, like unplugging equipment by the cord or plugging it in with wet hands. In other cases, the fault is with the equipment. Wall sockets should never be used if they’re missing the faceplate or the receptacles are damaged. Plugs with bent blades or no ground prong should immediately be pulled out of service. Electric cords’ insulation can be damaged over time or through physical trauma. Equipment should be regularly inspected for exposed wires, short circuits, and insulation breaks that may energize the equipment’s enclosure.
Healthcare facilities use powerful electrical equipment and a lot of it. That’s why circuit overloading is a hospital electrical hazard. Circuit monitoring systems are essential, but so is the responsible use of electrical equipment. Employees need to understand the appropriate use of extension cords, the importance of compliant equipment, and the dangers of overloaded circuits.
GET OSHA FOR HEALTHCARE WORKERS ONLINE
Hospitals and other healthcare facilities present a very unique set of safety hazards, but earning an OSHA 10 card for General Industry (available in English and Spanish) will give you a solid primer in important and relevant workplace safety topics.
Then you can further customize your safety education with these healthcare-specific courses covering regulations and guidelines from OSHA and TJC.
We’ve been an OSHA-authorized training provider for over 20 years, and these courses are IACET-accredited. Our online training is self-paced and available 24/7, so you can complete your coursework whenever and wherever it’s most convenient.