Welcome to Bloodborne Pathogens in the Workplace. In this lesson, we'll be giving you a rundown of everything you can expect to learn in this important course. And more importantly, we'll explain exactly why this information is so particularly vital to your safety, and the safety of those around you.
Before we dig into too deeply, it's important to understand why this training is important for you, if you could be possibly exposed to bloodborne pathogens in the workplace.
You see, bloodborne pathogens are invisible. Therefore, it's impossible to know if they exist or not in blood or blood products … until you contract an infectious disease, and it's too late.
What You Will Learn in this Course
Some of the important things we'll be teaching you in this course are:
- How to recognize potentially dangerous situations in your workplace
- Simple steps to better protect yourself by using:
• Personal protective equipment (PPE)
• Engineering controls
• Work practice controls
• How to clean up body fluid spills appropriately
Pro Tip #1: The skills you will learn in this course could not only save your life, but as already mentioned, since we're dealing with infectious diseases, these skills might also keep those people you care about around you safe as well.
The Goals of this Course
Do you know how to protect yourself from a bloodborne pathogen? Do you know what potential diseases You could face if you come in contact with blood or other body fluids? Do you know what to do if a person is bleeding and blood got on the floor and other surfaces?
The goal of this bloodborne pathogens course for the workplace is simple – to help you answer those vitally important questions above. And also to give you the knowledge and the skills necessary to prevent you from getting a disease from a bloodborne pathogen.
This course is intended for employees who need OSHA compliant bloodborne pathogen and infection control training. This course follows OSHA's Bloodborne Pathogens Standard (29 CFR 1910.1030) which requires the following:
- Training must be given at the time of initial assignment to the tasks or occupational exposure that may take place.
- Annual training for all employees shall be provided within one year of the previous training.
- Employers shall provide additional training when any workplace changes affect the employees' occupational exposure, such as when there is:
a. A modification of procedures
b. A modification of tasks
c. The institution of new procedures
d. The institution of new tasks
This additional training may be limited to address the new exposures that have been created.
Lessons You'll Find in this Couse
ProBloodborne for the Workplace includes the following bloodborne pathogen and infection control training:
- Basic terms related to bloodborne pathogens
- How bloodborne pathogens and infectious diseases are spread
- HIV/AIDS
- Hepatitis B
- Hepatitis C
- How to reduce your risk of exposure
- Engineering controls
- Work practices to protect yourself
- Personal protective equipment (PPE)
- Skin diseases
- Exposure control plans
- Proper cleanup and decontamination procedures
- Hazardous disposal
- Procedures to follow if an exposure incident occurs
This course is intended to be equivalent to no less than 1.5 hours of training related to bloodborne pathogens and infection control, especially as it is related to the workplace.
This entire program consists not only of lecture videos but also written course content (like this) and opportunities for you to ask questions via chat, email, and phone to the instructor who taught you. It's also important to take the time necessary to practice the skills you will be learning in these videos, such as:
- Putting on clean gloves
- Removing contaminated gloves
- Cleaning contaminated surfaces and equipment
- Proper handwashing techniques
Warning: While some of these may sound stupid to you, we assure you they are not. These simple yet effective skills may be the difference between living with an infectious disease and not having to deal with that nightmare. In other words, it will serve you well to take all of the skill training seriously.
At the conclusion of this lecture series and your practice with hands-on components, you will then go on to the written test, at which point you will be verified whether or not you retained this vital information that is required for your annual bloodborne pathogen certification specifically for the workplace.
We also encourage you to remember this: As long as you have opted into our reminder emails, you will receive important updates about the latest changes for the training topics that we will be covering in this initial training. It's important to retain these valuable skills as they will help protect you from needless infections from bloodborne pathogens.