The Wyoming Public Health Laboratory (WPHL) accepts the responsibility to protect the safety of employees, the public, and the environment from activities that are capable of producing disease in humans, animals, plants, and the environment to the best of their capabilities.
Risk assessments are a tool used to identify and mitigate the risks of working in a laboratory environment. Hazardous characteristics of a known infectious, or potentially infectious agent or material is assessed. Based on this information a standard operating procedure is developed to reduce the risk of working with these agents. In order to meet these responsibilities the WPHL will conduct and review biosafety related risk assessments (RA) annually, when there is a change in staff, and after incidents occur.
The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) Biosafety and Biosecurity Committee suggests that all laboratories should be performing risk assessments in order to promote biosafety best practices in the work place. Although the basic components of a risk assessment are similar, the content and design of the risk assessment template may be unique to each facility. WPHL’s templates are found in the Forms section. These forms can be used as a blueprint for any facility, to be altered as needed for the facility’s specific needs. APHL’s risk assessment templates can be found in the Forms section also.
Risk assessments should follow workflow from pre-analytical (accessioning), to analytical (processing), through post-analytical (disposal) processes. Completed risk assessments should be reviewed and documented by the laboratory director or supervisor.
These assessments should be conducted annually on a regular basis. Risk assessments are based on procedure or agent. The assessment must be performed when there are changes in agents, procedures, equipment or staff. Risks identified through this process should be prioritized from high risk to low risk, with the high risk taking precedence in the mitigation process. These are dynamic documents and possibly will change when the parameters of the original processes (equipment, personnel, or agents) change.
Components of a Risk Assessment:
Workforce:
- Identify personnel who will be affected throughout the work-flow
- Assess the competency and experience of the laboratory personnel
- Identify any gaps in training and offer trainings to staff
Risk Characterization:
- Identify hazards
- Consider the risk group of the agent (infectious dose rate and virulence)
- Determine the modes of transmission and potential for exposure
- Droplet, parenteral, spills, contact, etc.
- Identify activities which may increase risk of exposure
- Consider the instruments used and their potential for causing exposure
- Analyze general work practices
- Follow work flow
- Evaluate and prioritize risks (Risk Characterization Chart)
- Determine the likelihood and consequences of a specific risk found during the assessment. Using that information, develop a strategy to mitigate that risk.
Risk Mitigation:
- Develop risk mitigation strategies
- Identify required safety practices to address the identified risks
- Includes personal protective equipment (PPE), engineering controls, additional training, standard operating procedures, assessment strategies for staff proficiencies, and drills, etc.
- Determine whether additional risk mitigation strategies are necessary
- You may need to upgrade equipment and implement new training programs for staff
- Communicate risks and mitigation strategies to staff
- Determine how to communicate the risk assessment findings to all affected within the laboratory
- Designate an area to store completed risk assessments where staff has access to them for reference
- Validate risk mitigation strategies
- Perform a review of the mitigation strategy put into practice to ensure it addresses that all measures are effective
- Identify required safety practices to address the identified risks
It is important to remember that a risk assessment must be performed any time there is a change in personnel, equipment, or an incident occurs.
Resources:
Association of Public Health Laboratories, Risk Assessment Best Practices, May 5, 2016
Wyoming Public Health Risk assessment Policy and Standard Operating Procedure for Risk Assessment