Illness Exposure Risks for Temporary Healthcare Workers
When they fill a role in a doctor’s office, hospice, or other healthcare setting, temporary workers play a valuable role in helping sick and injured people find care and compassion. Unfortunately, their roles can also put them at an increased risk of exposure to a variety of illnesses.
For temporary workers in the healthcare industry, some common exposure risks include:
- Infectious diseases: Their work often puts temporary healthcare workers in direct contact with sick people. This greatly increases their risk of contracting an infectious disease, like influenza, tuberculosis, or COVID-19.
- Bloodborne diseases: In some cases, temporary workers might administer medications or draw blood. If needles are improperly handled or stored during tasks like these, workers can suffer from needlestick injuries. This increases their risk of exposure to bloodborne diseases, like HIV and hepatitis B.
- Exposure to biological hazards: While working with sick or injured people, temporary workers might come into contact with blood, bodily fluids, and other biological hazards. If biological hazards are improperly handled or stored, they can lead to a wide range of illnesses.
- Occupational allergies: Healthcare workers can be at risk of developing allergies to latex and other commonly used materials.
Steps for Preventing Illnesses Exposure for Temporary Healthcare Workers
If you’re a business owner with workers filling temporary healthcare industry roles, it’s important to take the right steps to reduce their risk of illness exposure. To protect your workers, you can take steps like:
- Providing safety training, especially in regards to reducing the risk of exposure to COVID-19, HIV, and other occupational risks. You should also ensure workers are properly trained on tasks like administering medications, disposing of needles, or handling potentially dangerous materials, like blood or body fluid samples.
- Providing any necessary personal protective equipment (PPE) like gloves, masks, or goggles.
- Encouraging a culture of workplace safety, with an emphasis on tasks like washing hands and cleaning contaminated areas.
- Creating a plan for promptly and efficiently addressing exposure risks
- Implementing risk management strategies to identify and address common exposure risks, like improperly stored needles or a lack of PPE.
- Offering strong Workers’ Compensation coverage options to your employees, so they know they’ll receive support after a workplace illness or injury.
If you need extra assistance on tasks like these, we can help! At Work Comp Business Insurance Solutions, we offer a suite of products tailored to the unique needs of businesses in the temporary staffing industry. This includes a full PEO product, which will help you navigate the challenges of Workers’ Compensation, risk management, and more.
At Work Comp Business Insurance Solutions, we help temporary staffing business owners find the Best Workers’ Compensation and Payroll Solutions. To learn more about our services and how we can help your temporary staffing business, visit us online at https://www.wcbis.com.
