Healthcare Workplace Safety & OSHA Essentials™

What you will learn

This program has four parts. By the end of each part, you should be able to:

Part 1: OSHA Fundamentals & Building a Culture of Safety

• Explain OSHA's role in healthcare and why workplace safety matters across different care settings.
• Describe basic employer and employee safety responsibilities, rights, and expectations.
• Recognize common workplace hazards in healthcare, including physical, chemical, biological, ergonomic, and environmental risks.
• Use basic hazard communication and PPE concepts to make safer day-to-day decisions.
• Report unsafe conditions, near misses, and hazards using simple workplace reporting steps.
• Apply a personal commitment to safety through observation, discussion, reflection, and practical action planning.

Part 2: Infection Prevention, Bloodborne Pathogens & Exposure Control

• Apply standard and transmission-based precautions in common healthcare situations.
• Identify bloodborne pathogen risks and explain how exposures happen in daily work.
• Perform hand hygiene and PPE selection steps correctly for different care tasks.
• Use safer sharps, injection, cleaning, and disinfection practices to reduce infection risk.
• Follow workplace exposure reporting and post-exposure procedures promptly and correctly.
• Recognize actions that help prevent healthcare-associated infections across healthcare settings.

Part 3

• Identify common healthcare emergency risks and explain the purpose of Emergency Action Plans in different care settings.
• Apply fire safety actions, including RACE and PASS, during realistic healthcare emergency scenarios.
• Follow evacuation and disaster response procedures while protecting patients, residents, visitors, and staff.
• Use safe patient handling principles and basic ergonomic practices to reduce musculoskeletal injury risk.
• Recognize warning signs of workplace violence and use de-escalation strategies to improve personal and patient safety.
• Complete workplace safety tools such as incident reports, risk assessments, and supervisor competency checklists.

Part 4

• Prepare for and respond appropriately to an OSHA inspection in a healthcare setting
• Document incidents, hazards, and corrective actions using clear regulatory and workplace records
• Apply root cause analysis to workplace safety events and near misses
• Develop corrective and preventive actions that improve safety performance over time
• Participate effectively in safety committees, audits, and continuous quality improvement efforts
• Create a practical workplace safety action plan for everyday healthcare work

Program details

• Self-paced online program for healthcare professionals
• Program length: 10 hours, in four parts
• Includes graded assessments you must pass to complete the program
• Earn a downloadable Certificate of Completion upon successful program completion—ideal for documenting professional development and submitting to your employer for potential reimbursement
• Each certificate has a verification ID that employers can check at nahcp.com/verify

Program length describes the length of the program, not a number of continuing-education credits. Check with your employer or licensing board before submitting a program for credit or reimbursement.