OSHA Announces Short-Term Increase in focused COVID Inspections

3/8/22 — OSHA released an enforcement memorandum for a short-term increase in highly focused inspections directed at hospitals and skilled nursing care facilities that treat or handle COVID-19 patients. The intent of this initiative is to magnify OSHA’s presence in high-hazard healthcare facilities over a three-month period (March 9, 2022 to June 9, 2022), to encourage employers in these industry sectors to take the necessary steps to protect their workers against the hazards of COVID-19. Facilities may be selected for inspections if they meet one of the following criteria:

1. Follow-up inspection of any prior inspection where a COVID-19-related citation or hazard alert letter (HAL) was issued;
2. Follow-up or monitoring inspections for randomly selected closed COVID-19 unprogrammed activity (UPA), to include COVID-19 complaints and Rapid Response Investigations (RRIs); or
3. Monitoring inspections for randomly selected, remote-only COVID-19 inspections where COVID-19-related citations were previously issued.

Read the OSHA enforcement memo.