Page 18 - Occupational Health & Safety, July/August 2019

LOCKOUT/TAGOUT
Lockout/Tagout Challenges &
Best Practices for Health Care Facilities
Clear, systemized safety procedures and good practices will keep your patients and employees safe with fewer accidents. BY BILL BELONGEA
Year after year, lockout/tagout (LOTO) ranks among the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s top 10 most-cited viola- tions with nearly 3,000 LOTO citations last year, according to the National Safety Council.1 Based on the volume of LOTO citations, it’s evident that companies face challenges in implementing effective lockout strategies.
OSHA refers to lockout/tagout as the practice of controlling hazardous energy to prevent the un- expected start-up, energization, or release of stored energy during service or maintenance activities. Haz- ardous energy encompasses all energy sources, in- cluding electrical, mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, chemical, thermal, or other sources, such as gravity, in machines and equipment that can be hazardous to workers. LOTO is not just best practices to prevent worker injury—it’s the law.
The OSHA standard for The Control of Hazardous Energy (lockout/tagout, 29 CFR 1910.147) “outlines specific action and procedures for addressing and controlling hazardous energy during servicing and maintenance of machines and equipment.” The OSHA standard applies to a wide variety of industries, rang- ing from manufacturing to oil and gas to health care.
Common reasons for LOTO noncompliance in- clude: 1) the thought that recognition and isolation of hazardous energy is a difficult compliance require-
ment, 2) the incorrect belief that LOTO procedures decrease productivity and 3) in industries such as health care, isolation of hazardous energy and visual procedures are often overlooked due to a general lack of awareness.
Lockout/Tagout in Health Care Settings
Lockout and tagout are often considered require- ments for industrial environments. But with today’s accident trends showing many serious injuries and fatalities occur in non-industrial settings, the number of health care institutions proactively taking measures to safeguard authorized personnel responsible for ser- vice and maintenance is on the rise.
The OSHA standard applies to a large number of work environments and certainly, the equipment-in- tensive environments of hospitals, clinics, and edu- cational centers are not exceptions. Formal lockout practices are of paramount importance for health care campuses where a wide range of maintenance activities, equipment types, and potential environ- mental and mechanical hazards abound. Heating, cooling, and ventilation equipment, complex light- ing systems, data centers, and medical lab equipment are a few common areas where LOTO procedures are needed in health care facilities.
Every health care facility is required to comply with OSHA. Failure to meet current standards could result
16 Occupational Health & Safety | JULY/AUGUST 2019
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