ERROR: Trying to get property 'site' of non-object

Back to the blog

Having spent a number of years on OSHA’s ‘Ergonomics Team’, which focused on enforcement in long term care facilities and meat processing plants, long term care (LTC) facilities happen to be something of a passion area for me. Historically, the long term care industry leads the nation in injury/illness rates, in part due to repetitive physical responsibilities involved with caring for our most vulnerable population.

Since most of the customers we work with have trouble aligning OSHA safety training topics with personnel and teams, I would divide them into 5-groups: dietary, laundry, maintenance, nursing and housekeeping. And for nursing I would include any level of care-staff, including physical therapy, occupational therapy, and possibly even the admins if they are asked to pitch-in with resident cares when staffing is low (it is always low).

To satisfy OSHA training requirements and simplify what can be a tiresome exercise for large employers with many diverse job types, I am recommending the following OSHA training topics as appropriate for each of the five aforementioned long-term care employee groups.

The topics include the following (occupational safety topics highlighted):

Bereavement
Caring for the Family Experiencing Perinatal Death
Communicating with the Bereaved
Theoretical Framework of Grief
HIPAA for Covered Entities
Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation
Back Care Ergonomics
Fire Safety: Patient Evacuation
Medical Hazard Communication Standard
Personal Protective Equipment for Healthcare
Restraint and Seclusion
Medicare Compliance and the False Claims Act

I would urge employers to read OSHA required training checklists and experience each of those similar course descriptions and titles to determine which is best suited to the particular department employee exposures, though each title here will support occupational safety and HR (human resource) personnel.

Without firsthand knowledge of specific equipment, working environments, and exact job responsibilities, I’d wager that this OSHA standard training regimen is about 85-90% accurate against workplace safety training. You’ll also notice duplicate recommendations for courses in our healthcare training suite and our general OSHA series.

The expensive phenomenon of injuries and illnesses associated long-term care workers is such a widespread issue that—aside from focused enforcement—OSHA has a dedicated webpage that is actually helpful for employers seeking direction on where to focus.

Many facilities aspire to earn accreditation by The Joint Commission, which, at a minimum, requires Federal OSHA compliance with workplace safety laws and standards.

If you’re looking for information to help tell the story of Federal OSHA compliance to leadership, you might also consider calculating injury & illness rates for your organization by department and compare to industry averages, doing a 3-year look back to the present. This is also a great way to identify and prioritize OSHA standard training requirements.