[MCOH-EH] TB skin test competencies

[Angeli Mancuso]

Our policy for annual (and post exposure) TB screening states that every employee able to get a TB skin test must do so at Employee Health & Safety. Reads must also occur here. Occasionally, for employees who don't plan ahead and have to get their tests read on the weekend to avoid our compliance deadline, we ask our house supervisors to read on our behalf. TB screening competency is maintained in personnel files for those authorized to perform this duty.

I get a question regarding why all nurses can't read their own or their co-workers' TB tests instead of returning to employee health. Our stance has always been that we must maintain competency in this skill just as floor nurses maintain competencies that we, as EHNs, do not maintain. I haven't given an IV push med in 8 years so I shouldn't be allowed to do so tomorrow.

Is this a policy you all maintain as well? Are we off the mark and should we consider having any RN document the result of a TB skin test? I've always been under the impression this is a Jt. Commission standard but cannot lay my hands on the exact reference.

Angeli Mancuso, RN, COHN-S/CM
Manager, Employee Health & Safety | Cottage Health
P.O Box 689 | 400 W. Pueblo St | Santa Barbara, CA 93102-0689
Office: (805) 569-7866 |  Fax: (805) 569-8271
a1mancus at sbch.org | cottagehealth.org
www.lifewhereyouloveit.org




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