Not many folks spend a lot of time reading 1910.1020 Access to employee exposure and medical records and it shows during most of our OSH audits. The standard is not a safety standard, so most safety pros don’t spend much time on the standard. But there is a lot of “document control and retention” needs embedded in the standard and most facilities that have the basic OSHA compliance program approach to safety and health will fail in their compliance with this standard.
Take for example, what does the facility do with MSDS/SDS for chemicals that are no longer used at the facility? A lot of facilities are not aware of the requirement to not only maintain the MSDS/SDS for those chemicals, but they are also required to maintain info…
on where it was used, and when it was used. (1910.1020(d)(1)(ii)(B))
These days it is not hard to find a facility that has undergone signifcant changes in its business model, with old products moved out and a new products introduced. Most manage the new products coming into the facility pretty well, but those old products, and the chemicals used to make them, are rarely managed in any way.
We recently performed an OSH audit at a facility that had undergone substantial changes, and many of the hazardous chemicals (several were carcinogens requiring special compliance measures in 1910 Subpart Z – Toxic and Hazardous Substances) used at the facility were no longer present. The company boxed up everything and sent them to a local start-up business for “long-term business storage”, which failed after three years of business. All the letters to the facility regarding their “going out of business” were addressed to the former purchasing manager who set up the account. Purchasing is now run by a 3rd party in a different country, so the warning letters from the storage business went into oblivion, and the records were destroyed after no one responded to the letters or went and retrieved the documents. The storage place had no idea what the documents were and their significance.
During our audit, no one in the EHS Group or on the management team within the facility had any idea of these retention requirements from the earlier years. Most of the current staff/management are new to the facility, well after the years when these hazardous chemicals where on-site. They only learned of this debacle when trying to close out the audit finding and began searching for these records. The only way they found it was through a search of the Purchase Order system, and then it was pure luck they could find this business with the word “storage” in its name.
So how does your facility manage its long-term data retention commitments? How does this info get transmitted from person to person? What if the facility shut down? You can see the need for a documented SMS to manage this aspect of our OSH programs.
1910.1020(d)(1)(i) Employee medical records
The medical record for each employee shall be preserved and maintained for at least the duration of employment plus thirty (30) years, except that the following types of records need not be retained for any specified period:
1910.1020(d)(1)(i)(A) Health insurance claims records maintained separately from the employer’s medical program and its records,
1910.1020(d)(1)(i)(B) First aid records (not including medical histories) of one-time treatment and subsequent observation of minor scratches, cuts, burns, splinters, and the like which do not involve medical treatment, loss of consciousness, restriction of work or motion, or transfer to another job, if made on-site by a non-physician and if maintained separately from the employer’s medical program and its records, and
1910.1020(d)(1)(i)(C) The medical records of employees who have worked for less than (1) year for the employer need not be retained beyond the term of employment if they are provided to the employee upon the termination of employment.
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1910.1020(d)(1)(ii) Employee exposure records.
Each employee exposure record shall be preserved and maintained for at least thirty (30) years, except that:
1910.1020(d)(1)(ii)(A) Background data to environmental (workplace) monitoring or measuring, such as laboratory reports and worksheets, need only be retained for one (1) year as long as the sampling results, the collection methodology (sampling plan), a description of the analytical and mathematical methods used, and a summary of other background data relevant to interpretation of the results obtained, are retained for at least thirty (30) years; and
1910.1020(d)(1)(ii)(B) Material safety data sheets and paragraph (c)(5)(iv) records concerning the identity of a substance or agent need not be retained for any specified period as long as some record of the identity (chemical name if known) of the substance or agent, where it was used, and when it was used is retained for at least thirty (30) years; 1 and
1910.1020(d)(1)(ii)(C)Biological monitoring results designated as exposure records by specific occupational safety and health standards shall be preserved and maintained as required by the specific standard.
1910.1020(d)(1)(iii)Analyses using exposure or medical records. Each analysis using exposure or medial records shall be preserved and maintained for at least thirty (30) years.
1910.1020(d)(2) Nothing in this section is intended to mandate the form, manner, or process by which an employer preserves a record as long as the information contained in the record is preserved and retrievable, except that chest X-ray films shall be preserved in their original state.