Instructions for Employee Body Substance Exposures
Employee Health Service (EHS) performs the evaluation and treatment of body substance exposures for employees of the Medical Center. You can access this service 24 hours per day by Alpha or numeric page, Employee Health Service beeper #5356. During EHS hours the Employee Health nurse will return your page. After EHS hours, the pager will be forwarded to the appropriate staff in the Emergency Department. Contact EHS for information and lab requisitions for baseline and follow-up lab testing following a body substance exposure. Baseline post-exposure blood for HIV antibody and Hepatitis B Antigen is drawn. If the source was high risk for Hepatitis C, you will have a baseline Hepatitis C antibody drawn as well.
The HIV testing on employees is done with a coded specimen so that the testing and results are identifiable only to EHS staff. When you have your blood drawn you will send it by courier on a requisition with your name and social security number on the requisition and tube label. When EHS receives the blood, we will replace the requisition and label with a coded one and specify which tests should be done. This will ensure your confidentiality. Medical personnel at your worksite can obtain your consent or, if you prefer, you may come to EHS to have this done.
If you have knowledge or concerns that the source patient may be HIV positive, notify EHS of the exposure immediately. For exposures to HIV positive sources, postexposure prophylaxis is evaluated according to an EHS protocol. The EHS nurse will ask you questions regarding the source and the type of exposure to determine whether any treatment is necessary. High risk HIV exposures will be treated in person in EHS.
EHS will notify you by telephone and by mail of the results of source blood testing. The OSHA Bloodborne Pathogens Standard requires that the employee be informed of the results of source blood testing, but the employee must maintain the confidentiality of the source blood test. In your notification, you will also be instructed regarding follow-up or any further treatment.
Follow-up employee testing is done at 3 and 6 months. Call the EHS nurse and she/he will tell you which follow-up tests to mark on blank requisitions. If the source was low-risk for HIV and Hepatitis, you may choose not to have follow-up blood testing. If you do send follow-up blood to EHS for processing, we will again code the sample for confidentiality.
