Tuberculosis Training Program

​​The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires healthcare facilities to provide training and information to all new and current employees on tuberculosis (TB) transmission, TB signs and symptoms, medical surveillance and therapy, and the purpose and proper use of controls, including site-specific protocols. OSHA also requires that facilities train their workers to recognize any patients or clients with symptoms suggestive of infectious TB and report these cases to a designated person. OSHA also requires facilities to instruct workers on the postexposure protocols to be followed in the event of an exposure incident (OSHA). In promulgating these training requirements, OSHA makes reference to the 1994 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines on preventing TB transmission.

In 2005, CDC issued Guidelines for Preventing the Transmission ofMycobacterium tuberculosisin Health-Care Settings,an updated set of guidelines containing specific recommendations for the content of a TB training course. Until OSHA publishes a revised document incorporating the 2005 CDC TB guidelines, the agency will continue to enforce its directive CPL 02-00-106/CPL 2.106, “Enforcement Procedures and Scheduling for Occupational Exposure to Tuberculosis.” However, OSHA will not cite a facility for failing to meet the requirements in directive CPL 02-00-106/CPL 2.106, as long as the facility complies with alternative recommendations in the 2005 CDC guidelines (Williams).

To assist facilities in complying with this mandate, the Healthcare Risk Control(HRC)System has developed this training program, including slides covering essential elements from the 2005 CDC guidelines. This program is designed to provide most of what is necessary to organize and conduct a training session on TB. It includes the following:

These training materials must be supplemented with institution-specific information. Training slides and handouts especially will need to be altered to reflect unique aspects of or procedures in the TB control plan. There are blanks in the reproducible visuals and in “Tuberculosis: A Healthcare Worker’s Guide” that must be filled in and addressed during the lecture. Feel free to copy, modify, or adapt any...