Occupational Safety and Health Administration

Best Practices Guide: Fundamentals of a Workplace First-aid Program Occupational Safety and Health Administration

OSHA 3317-06N. First aid is emergency care provided for injury or sudden illness before emergency medical treatment is available. The first-aid provider in the workplace is someone who is trained in the delivery of initial medical emergency procedures, using a limited amount of equipment to perform a primary assessment and intervention while awaiting arrival of emergency medical service (EMS) personnel. A workplace first-aid program is part of a comprehensive safety and health management system that includes the following four essential elements: management leadership and employee involvement, worksite analysis, hazard prevention and control, safety and training. The purpose of this guide, Best Practices Guide: Fundamentals of a Workplace First-Aid Program, is to present a summary of the basic elements for a first-aid program at the workplace. Those elements include: identifying and assessing the workplace risks that have potential to cause worker injury or illness; designing and implementing a workplace first-aid program that: aim to minimize the outcome of accidents or exposures; complies with OSHA requirements relating to first aid; includes sufficient quantities of appropriate and readily accessible first-aid supplies and first-aid equipment, such as bandages and automated external defibrillators; assigns and trains first-aid providers who: receive first-aid training suitable to the specific workplace, receive periodic refresher courses on first-aid skills and knowledge; instructing all workers about the first-aid program, including what workers should do if a coworker is injured or ill. Putting the policies and program in writing is recommended to implement this and other program elements; and providing for scheduled evaluation and changing of the first-aid program to keep the program current and applicable to emerging risks in the workplace, including regular assessment of the adequacy of the first-aid training course. This guide includes an outline of the essential elements of safe and effective first-aid training for the workplace as guidance to institutions teaching first-aid courses and to the consumer of these courses.