Safety, Health, Environment, and Risk Management
EHS Main Office 713.500.8100For Emergencies dial 911. EHS Hotline 713.500.5832
Safety, Health, Environment & Risk Management’s (SHERM) mission is to work in conjunction with the UTHealth community to ensure that education, research, and health care service activities take place in conditions that are optimally safe and healthy for all students, faculty, staff, visitors, surrounding community and the general public.
Put simply, we exist to help people go home as healthy and safe as they arrived.
Our main office is located at the Operations Center Building (OCB 1.330) and we can be reached at 713.500.8100 or Fax 713.500.8111.
PPE training for Healthcare workers working with suspected Ebola patients
Regulatory Updates
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Releases “United States Government Policy for Institutional Oversight of Life Sciences Dual Use Research of Concern”
Despite its value and benefits, certain types of research conducted for legitimate purposes can
be utilized for both benevolent and harmful purposes. Such research is called “dual use
research.” Dual use research of concern is a subset of dual use research defined as: “life
sciences research that, based on current understanding, can be reasonably anticipated to
provide knowledge, information, products, or technologies that could be directly misapplied to
pose a significant threat with broad potential consequences to public health and safety,
agricultural crops and other plants, animals, the environment, materiel, or national security.” [Read More]
Ensuring Biosafety and Biosecurity in U.S. Laboratories
The White House recently issued a memorandum to all federal facilities working with potentially infectious organisms to conduct a “safety stand down” to ensure that existing safety programs are adequate to protect both workers and the public, and to ensure that no residual unknown specimens that might represent a risk remain in laboratories. [Read More]
SAFETY NOTICE:
If your workstation has a Geiger Products overhead credenza like the one shown in the picture above, it is important that you not place too much weight in the overhead cabinet. When originally installed, the legs of the credenza are not affixed to the tabletop below, and overloading can cause the legs to bow out. We experienced a significant unit failure last week, but thankfully no one was hurt.
ACTION ITEMS:
If you have one of these units, please remove any unnecessary weight in the overhead cabinet. The vendor of the cabinetry can be contacted to install retrofit angle braces that connect the overhead unit to the table top below which prevents bowing. The retrofit may or may not be free of charge, depending on where the furniture was purchased. For further information, contact Ryan Hargrove at rhargrove@ophouston.com
Throughout UTHealth there are two different types of emergency pull stations, one colored red and one blue. The difference between these two devices goes beyond their color. The most common device is the red pull station, used to alert building occupants and the Houston Fire Department (HFD) in the event of a fire. The blue pull station, perhaps less well known, is used to alert the University of Texas Police Department (UTPD) when a situation requires police intervention.
New safety training is now available through our online and classroom training courses. New for 2014, the Global Harmonized System (GHS) has been recently adopted by OSHA under 29 CFR 1910.1200 (Hazard Communication Standard). The GHS is a system for standardizing and harmonizing the classification and labeling of chemicals. Under the GHS system, Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) have now been replaced by Safety Data Sheets (SDS). SDS are available to all UTHealth personnel and can be found on CHEMWATCH or by contacting EHS at 713.500.5832.
For more information please select the link.
Initial Lab and Clinical Safety Trainingevery Monday* at 1:30 pmUCT 1505C *Unless University is closed |
Annual Lab and Bloodborne Pathogen's TrainingOnline only |
Basic Radiation Safety TrainingFebruary 25 & 26, 2015 |
Infectious Shipping TrainingApril 7, 2015 [UTPhysicians Training] |
