Protect Employees and Respond to Workplace Hazards

Assess exposure and control the hazard at its source

Standard Precautions are the current healthcare framework that incorporates the main features of older Universal Precautions and body substance isolation. Treat blood, body fluids, secretions, and excretions except sweat, plus nonintact skin and mucous membranes, as potentially infectious. Apply the precautions to every patient interaction according to anticipated exposure, not a patient's diagnosis. Foodservice employees may need them when entering care areas, retrieving trays with visible body fluids, providing feeding assistance within role, handling sharps found on trays, or responding to an injury. Controls include hand hygiene, task-selected gloves, gown or protective clothing, mask and eye or face protection for splash risk, respiratory hygiene, safe sharps handling, containment, and correct cleaning or disinfection. Gloves do not replace hand hygiene. Remove contaminated PPE without contacting skin or clothing and before carrying contamination into food areas. This occupational and patient infection-control framework is distinct from the Food Code employee-health controls used to keep an ill food employee from contaminating food, although both may apply to one event.