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Automation and Safety in the Laboratory

Advances in laboratory automation in today’s organizations affect medical laboratory professionals (MLPs). Demands to increase patient safety and handle higher numbers of samples are well-known drivers...

Speaking Up for Safety

Speaking up for safety is increasingly accepted as necessary in health care settings where patient safety is a priority for health care professionals such as nurses and doctors...

Responding Safely to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Keeping ourselves safe enables us to fulfill the requests of others. And there has never been a more pressing time for medical laboratory professionals (MLPs) to be healthy, competent and committed to delivering vital services to patients in health care systems...

To Mask or Not to Mask: PPE in the Age of COVID-19 and Beyond

It is hard to believe that a few months ago, very few people outside of health care knew what personal protective equipment (PPE) was...

Climate Change and Rising Risks

Climate change influences so many parts of our lives and, indeed, our futures. It’s also true that climate change has influenced infectious diseases – and that means it has changed the work done in the lab over the past few decades...

Fatigue in the Lab During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Isn’t everybody tired these days? It may feel this way since 2020 has brought much stress, anxiety and uncertainty with it...

COVID-19: A Disruptor in the Lab

Adapting to new and changing rules feels like a “new normal” during the COVID-19 pandemic; and those rules are not just limited to our personal lives, but include workplace safety rules as well. Taken together, it can feel like a disruption...

Are You Ready for a Different Kind of Emergency in the Lab?

COVID-19 has become a prolonged emergency that has disrupted all aspects of our working and personal lives. While the everpresent nature of COVID-19 is hard to forget, it is important to spend time on the other kinds of emergencies that can happen...

Blood and Body Fluid Exposures

Occupational exposures to blood or body fluids are some of the most feared occupational hazards for health care workers...

Getting Back to Work

Once an employee has an injury or illness that results in extended time off from work, there are subtle and not-so-subtle changes that impact the worker’s life as well as those of co-workers, family members and friends...

Improving Laboratory Etiquette

How often have you watched a colleague working and worried about the effect on your own health and safety?..

Let's look at risk

In occupational health and safety, we often are told we need to do a risk assessment to properly classify hazards and determine the most appropriate controls...

Medical Laboratory Named One of Canada's Safest Employers

Calgary Laboratory Services (CLS) is the first medical diagnostic laboratory to be a recipient of a “Canada’s Safest Employers” award, winning silver in the Health Care category in 2014...

Not My Job?

Safety officers often complain that there are very good policies and procedures in place, but they are not being followed; laboratory staff are not wearing some of the required personal protective equipment and staff may not be respecting the contaminated/uncontaminated rules...

Protecting the Public

In recent years, the Canadian public has been made keenly aware of the threat and seriousness of influenza...

The Human Pathogens and Toxins Act and its Regulations

The Human Pathogens and Toxins Regulations (HPTR) will come into force, along with the remaining sections of the Human Pathogens and Toxins Act (HPTA), on December 1, 2015...

The Scare in Saskatoon

What happens when a patient brewing a suspected Risk Group 4 pathogen travels to Canada from the hot zone of a recent outbreak in Africa?..

The State of Whistleblowing

Whistleblowing is a term applied to a situation where an employee raises concerns about unsafe, unethical or illegal practices at work...

Total Worker Health - the new frontier

Most workplaces have implemented occupational health and safety programs to some extent...

Transitioning into WHMIS 2015 - Introduction

The move to globally harmonize the system for communicating about hazardous products has been in progress for many years...

Transitioning to WHMIS 2015 - Education and Training

Training has always been an important component of WHMIS programs...

Transitioning to WHMIS 2015 - Hazard Classification

As we continue to transition to WHMIS 2015, one of the most significant changes has been to the classification of hazards...

Transitioning to WHMIS 2015 - Labels and Safety Data Sheets

Under the new WHMIS 2015, the two types of labels remain – the supplier labels and the workplace labels...

Housekeeping - Not Just in our Homes

Housekeeping is often underacknowledged as an activity that is important in our workplaces...

Laboratory Biosecurity and Bioterrorism

It’s not often that we step back to think about security and terror in our daily working lives...

Breaking the Chain of Infection in the Laboratory

Laboratory-acquired infections (LAIs) are measured as all infections that arise through laboratory or laboratory-related activities, regardless of whether they are symptomatic or asymptomatic in nature...