OSHA has issued an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) for occupational exposure to COVID-19 that is applicable only to healthcare employers. The genesis for this ETS came one day after President Biden’s inauguration when, on January 21, 2021, he asked OSHA to consider whether any emergency t...
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) passed its COVID-19 Healthcare Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) for healthcare-based businesses. The ETS requires employers to implement a COVID-19 plan to protect their workers from the virus. Who is Affected? To assist healthcare ...
Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) issued a new directive that establishes a change in its inspection and enforcement procedures to facilitate the uniform enforcement of OSHA’s Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) with respect to workplace exposures to COVID-19 in the h...
"The ETS is an overdue step toward protecting healthcare workers, especially those working in long-term care facilities and home healthcare who are at greatly increased risk of infection," said George Washington professor and former Obama administration Assistant Secretary of Labor David Michaels, PhD...
On March 23, 2022, OSHA reopened the comment period on its COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) for healthcare (OSHA’s 1st ETS), which concerns making the ETS a permanent standard that could include coverage of construction activities being performed in healthcare facilities. This action...
Despite OSHA’s intentions to provide additional safeguards for healthcare employees impacted by COVID-19, MGMA expressed concerns over the implementation of the ETS and how it might disrupt healthcare workforce management. In a June 30th letter to Secretary Walsh, the MGMA urged the...
such a standard was imminent. OSHA declined to comment on whether it would take a dual approach on the ETS, one for the healthcare and another for the non-healthcare sector, but the agency indicated that this possibility exists. Employers should continue to monitor for a COVID-19 ETS. ...
Although OSHA will no longer be enforcing the ETS, they are leaving it on the table as a proposed rule and "prioritizing" a "permanent COVID-19 Healthcare Standard" to apply in the workplace. Here is the OSHA announcement, posted on its website yesterday Statement on the Status of theOS...
ETS was adopted in June, imposing mandatory requirements for healthcare employers on infection control protections, with penalties for those who violate those requirements. Those protections include mandating N95 respirators and personal protective equipment; isolating patients suspected of having COVID or ...
temporary standard (“ETS”) requiring all businesses with more than 100 employees who are not already subject to a vaccine mandate to either require that all employees be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or implement a weekly COVID-19 testing requirement for any employees who ar...