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Solving Safety Problems

Most procedures in a veterinary practice carry little tangible risk to the patient or the staff; however, there are times when safety precautions are necessary. In the veterinary practice, sometimes it’s appropriate to rely on a mask or a pair of gloves for protection, but sometimes the protection must be “built into” the facility or the procedure.

When faced with a situation requiring a safety solution, OSHA expects the practice to solve the problem in the following sequence:

•  Primarily utilizing engineering controls when possible, then
•  By the use of procedural controls also known as "work practice controls," then
•  By relying on Personal Protective Equipment devices to place a “barrier” between the employee and the hazard.

If the condition can be corrected by using engineering controls, OSHA would expect this to be the first solution. It would not be acceptable to substitute another means of control if an engineering control were practical. Usually, OSHA believes that a budgetary constraint alone (e.g., we need it but we don’t have the money) is not enough to consider a necessary engineering control impractical.

In general, the term “engineering control” means the installation and use of mechanical devices to eliminate or reduce the severity of the hazard. In the setting such as the veterinary practice, this normally means the use of exhaust fans, waste gas scavenging devices, and maybe even some of the restraint equipment used on equine and food animals.

If engineering controls are not physically possible, the next step is to institute “procedural controls.” This means modification of “the way we do it” so that the hazard is eliminated or reduced. For instance, if mechanical ventilation of a particular room is not feasible, but the levels of chemical fumes are excessive, the next option would be to move the process or chemicals to another room that can be ventilated. Similarly, switching to a less hazardous chemical or modifying the actual procedure to reduce the amount of time a person is exposed to the risk would also be examples of procedural controls.

Only when mechanical controls are not possible and procedural controls can not reduce the hazard to the appropriate levels, is the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) a suitable course of action. When PPE is chosen as the control method for a particular hazard, it is expected that:

•  the PPE is appropriate for the hazard and the user (e.g., the correct size);
•  the leadership of the practice will instruct the staff on the PPE’s proper use and limitations, and
•  the leadership will enforce the PPE rules with as much diligence as any other rules of the business.

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The information on these pages is excerpted from
The Veterinary Safety & Health Digest,
Copyright 2003 Philip J. Seibert, Jr., CVT  All Rights Reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced for distribution without prior permission from the publisher.