regulated waste
Medical term Safety and Compliance
OSHA term for liquid blood or OPIM, items that would release blood if squeezed or are caked with it, and used sharps. It needs special handling.
Related terms
- OPIMOther potentially infectious materials: fluids such as semen, CSF and any visibly bloody fluid, plus unfixed…
- OSHAOccupational Safety and Health Administration: part of the U.S. Department of Labor; it writes and enforces…
- sharpsItems that can pierce or cut skin: needles, lancets, broken glass. Discard used ones immediately in a sharps…
- portal of exitHow a pathogen leaves its reservoir, for example in blood from a puncture site or in droplets from a cough.
- proficiency testingOutside testing of unknown samples to check a lab's accuracy; CLIA does not require it for waived tests, but…
- quality controlTesting control samples with known values to prove a test system works. When controls fail, patient results…
- reference rangeThe values expected for a test in healthy people, set by each laboratory for its own method; results are…
- reservoirThe home where a germ survives and multiplies, for example an infected patient, a carrier or contaminated…
- respondeat superior"Let the master answer": an employer is liable for an employee's negligence within the scope of the job…
- scope of practiceThe tasks a worker is trained and allowed to do. Phlebotomists collect and handle specimens; they do not…
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