Medical Emergencies in the Workplace

Avoiding accidents and maintaining a safe work environment at a factory or construction site should always be top of mind for employers. In fact, safety regulations should be in place and strictly enforced whether it be hard-hat requirements or ventilation regulations. And although these regulations and rules seem obvious in more hazardous environments, what about an office environment?

In office environments, things that can go wrong can be just as severe as those that occur in high hazard workplaces: electrocution, falls, illness and overexertion are just a few examples. For this reason, all worksites should have a plan for responding to a medical emergency.

According to the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), there were 5,703 work related fatalities in the private sector in 2004. In that same year, there were 4.3 million total workplace injuries and illnesses, of which 1.3 million resulted in days away from work.

First-aid is a term used to describe the emergency care that is provided for illness or injury before professional medical treatment is available. In the workplace, this care is often performed with limited equipment and basic training. In 1970, OSHA began requiring employers to comply with hazard-specific safety and health standards and regulations.

To develop a plan for responding to a medical emergency, a company should focus on these four essential elements:
  • Management Leadership and Employee Involvement
  • Worksite Analysis
  • Hazard Prevention and Control
  • Safety and Health Training
Support from company leadership is the first requirement. Employees appreciate knowing that if they are injured or ill at work there is a plan to get help for them.

Once senior leadership is committed to developing a medical emergency response plan, the next step is to assess the workplace and identify hazards in the workplace that could cause injury or illness. Office employees are often injured by slips and falls, or by overexertion when doing an unusual task (like lifting a heavy box). Some office tasks may involve repetitive motions of the hand, wrist or shoulder that can result in strains or other medical conditions.

Now you are ready to determine the response time for emergency medical services (EMS) once you have called 9-1-1. OSHA has established a minimum response time requirement of 4-5 minutes or less as adequate. If your company has a response time from your local EMS of longer than that, you should consider having a first-aid trained team of responders. If your company is not within the four to five minute response time, OSHA requires a method to respond to sudden illnesses and injuries, usually a first-aid trained team. This team should also have training in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to help the injured or ill person until the emergency medical services arrive.

You can get training for your first-aid response team from your local branch of the American Red Cross, your local safety council and possibly your local hospital or EMS. This training is required to be refreshed on a periodic basis, to keep up with changes in medical protocols. If you decide to have a first-aid trained team, they will also need to comply with the requirements of OSHA bloodborne pathogens standard. This standard requires use of specific personal protective equipment (PPE), annual training, and specific procedures to follow if the responder is exposed to an injured person's blood or body fluids and disposal of contaminated waste. If you have a first-aid trained team and want more information about the OSHA bloodborne pathogens standard, please feel free to contact Doherty's safety department.

Every workplace, regardless of the distance to the nearest hospital or clinic, should have basic first-aid supplies on-site that correspond to the specific hazards in the workplace. These basic first-aid supplies can be as simple as; a CPR mask, band-aids, gauze, tape and some "instant ice packs" to apply cold compresses to a bruise or wound; or more complex according to the hazards in the workplace.

Medications are generally not recommended as a part of a workplace first-aid kit. Employees may be allergic to the medications (both oral medications and/or creams/lotions), and there is also the possibility that employees may be taking medications prescribed by their personal physician that could interact with the first-aid kit medications and cause the situation to get worse.

When selecting the supplies for your first-aid kit, consider the following:
  • The supplies should be adequate to respond to the most common kinds of injuries at your workplace and should be stored in easily accessible areas.
  • For large operations, you may want to consider supplying your first-aid team with basic individual kits that they can carry in a waist pack while at work, and supplementing those small kits with a larger, more comprehensive kit stored in a few places where more serious hazards exist.
  • If you have multiple kits you will want to designate a person to re-stock the first-aid kits periodically to be certain supplies are always on hand for an emergency.
Once you have your first-aid team members identified and trained and your first-aid kits distributed in your facility, the next step is to publish the method to alert the team to respond in the event of an injury or illness. How you do that is up to you and should fit with your company. If you are a small office simply calling out for help may be enough. If you are a large company you may need to use a paging system, or instruct employees to call supervisors who can use walkie-talkies - whatever method you decide on should be tested to be certain it works. Once the procedure is tested, all employees should have refresher training on this topic on an annual basis.

Accidents can happen anywhere, whether it is the tenth floor scaffolding of a construction site or the corner office. As with any company policy or program, your medical emergency response program should be reviewed from time to time to make sure the needs of your workplace are being met. Many of the supplies in first-aid kits will require periodic replacement or maintenance, and an effective medical response program will evolve accordingly.

Taking the steps to implement or upgrade a medical response program in the workplace will keep your company in compliance with employment law as well as show your workforce that you are doing everything you can to ensure their work environment is safe.

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