UCLA to Open First of Its Kind “Center for Laboratory Safety”
Posted on Mon, May 09, 2011 @ 08:15 AM
Since 2008, UCLA has been making sweeping changes to its laboratory safety policies and management procedures. The stimulus for these changes was the unfortunate death of a laboratory researcher who succumbed to wounds when splashed with a dangerous pyrophoric chemical. Many of the changes made to the safety program have resulted in increased awareness to employees. The UCLA EH&S staff are out inspecting more laboratories with a higher focus on quality and increased level of communication of data (i.e. reports to PI’s within 24 hours of inspection).
Flash forward to March of this year when the Chancellor’s Office and the Office of the President provided funding (i.e. $400,000) to open the first Center in the U.S. to focus on improving Laboratory Safety globally. The new center will research which regulations and lab safety programs work and which ones do not. The data derived from the research will spawn a best practices document aimed at sharing the outcomes with the institutional community and others that are working to achieve similar lab safety goals. For success with new programs, not only will the culture of laboratory workers need to change, but the practices and efforts from the EH&S community will need to adapt and improve its techniques and behaviors. With collaboration from the academic community, the center aims to show decreases in lab safety injuries in the years to follow.