Industrial Hygiene Monitoring Considerations in Health Care Settings

In February 2017, I participated in an open call with the Industrial Hygiene Practice Specialty (IHPS) of the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) about industrial hygiene monitoring considerations in health settings. If you missed it, you can access the video and handout from the IHPS website.

Link to the video: https://vimeo.com/202830157 

Hear the #industrioushygienist speak about industrial hygiene in healthcare!

The gist of the presentation / open call was: "Healthcare workers are at risk for a variety of occupational exposures to chemical hazards, including hazardous drugs, anesthetic gases, and disinfectants. While resources exist for guidance on assessing occupational exposures to these hazards, there is no single resource for safety professionals in healthcare settings to use in developing a defensible industrial hygiene (IH) monitoring program."

We are working on a series of open calls to address some of the questions from attendees, so watch for that information in the near future. IHPS is hoping to share the expertise of our Volunteer Advisory Committee with safety professionals around the world through these open calls. 

The #industrioushygienist supports #ASSE and the Industrial Hygiene PS.

Preparing for #Safety2017

I've been pleasantly busy with the new job (not a surprise: being a professor is hard work) and haven't had much time to devote to blogging. I'll have some more exciting new content as summer gets closer.

I just found out that my proposal to speak at the Pacific Northwest AIHA Spring Symposium was accepted, so that is pretty spiffy. I'll be speaking for an hour on "Using Continuity of Operations Planning to Improve Your EH&S Program" in Lacey, WA on April 19, 2017.

Since the Puget Sound ASSE's PDC is on my campus, I'll also be attending that on May 5, 2017. I'm looking forward to meeting Pacific Northwest safety professionals and alumni from Central Washington University's Safety and Health Management (SHM) program. Go Wildcats!

My co-author and I have been hard at work completing our proceedings paper and presentation for #Safety2017 in Denver, CO. If you'll be at the conference, we'd love to have you attend our presentation on "Practical Tools for Gender Equal Protection in OSH Programs" on June 20, 2017 at 1:00pm (Session #537). We're also working on an article summarizing the presentation for Professional Safety, so hopefully that is accepted soon!

The Industrious Hygienist is speaking at Concurrent Session #537!

Depending on professional development funding (of which I have none remaining, so must ask for more), I may also be attending AIHce 2017 in Seattle, at least for a day. The #AIHce2017 conference is scheduled during my finals week, so I probably will not be able to attend the entire thing. 

Piper Pangolin will (of course) be attending both #Safety2017 and #AIHce2017 with me, so you can look forward to more goofy videos of the #industrioushygienist and #sockpuppetsafety from Denver and Seattle. 

Pre-Conference Activities at #Safety2016

While we were at #Safety2016 in Atlanta, the Industrious Hygienist put together this quick video of the pre-conference adventures experienced by Piper Pangolin on Saturday, June 25, 2016. 



Before attending the Council on Practices and Standards with ASSE, the Industrious Hygienist and Piper did some reconnaissance of the Omni Hotel, CNN Center, and Georgia World Congress Center. We were dismayed to see that the Cartoon Network store next to the CNN Studio Tours Store seemed to be closed for construction (since we love cartoons!), but we still enjoyed the bear statues. 

After the Council on Practices and Standards meetings, we attended the House of Delegates meeting and were impressed by the generous contributions by ASSE Chapters and individuals to the ASSE Foundation during the "Lightning Round" of fundraising in celebration of the ASSE Foundation's 25th Anniversary. The student section from Keene State College were present at the House of Delegates and contributed to the ASSE Foundation as well. We can't wait to see the videos they create with Sammy the KSC Safety Squirrel.

We love the ASSE Foundation's "I [heart] Safety" campaign! Looks like we found another non-profit to donate to (when we have profits to do so)...

Happy (late) 25th Anniversary to @ASSEFoundation