2023 Tennessee Code › Title 50 - EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYEE (§§ 50-1-101 — 50-11-106) › Chapter 3 - OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ACT OF 1972 (§§ 50-3-101 — 50-3-2001) › Part 2 - STANDARDS (§§ 50-3-201 — 50-3-204) › Section 50-3-203 - Protective measures

(a)
Where appropriate, any standard promulgated under §
50-3-201
may prescribe the use of labels or other appropriate forms of warning to the extent necessary to ensure that employees are informed of any significant hazards to which they are exposed, relevant symptoms and proper conditions for safe use or exposure.
(b)
Where appropriate, the standards may also prescribe suitable protective equipment, but not as a substitute for appropriate control techniques, as well as control or technological procedures to be used in connection with the hazards.
(c)
(1)
Where appropriate, the administrator shall require the monitoring or measuring of employee exposure at the locations and intervals, and in the manner, necessary for the protection of the employees.
(2)
Any employee who has been or is being exposed in a biologically significant manner to harmful agents or materials in excess of the applicable standard shall be promptly notified by the employee's employer, and informed of corrective action being taken.
(d)
In addition, where appropriate, the standard shall prescribe the type and frequency of medical examinations or other tests that shall be made available, by the employer or at the employer's cost, to employees exposed to the hazards, in order to most effectively determine whether the health of the employees is adversely affected by the exposure.
(e)
(1)
Where appropriate, the standards shall reduce the transmission of bloodborne pathogens through needles. The commissioners of labor and workforce development and health shall jointly review sharps injury prevention technology to include needleless systems and needles with engineered sharps injury protection.
(2)
The commissioners shall jointly determine those environments where standards require that sharps injury prevention technology be employed. Sharps injury prevention technology shall not be required wherever the employer or other appropriate party demonstrates that the technology is medically contraindicated or is not more effective than alternative measures used by an employer to prevent exposure incidents.
(3)
The standard shall require written exposure control plans be adopted by employers. Written exposure control plans shall be revised to reflect improvements in sharps injury prevention technology. Written exposure control plans shall include the type and brand of device used in an incident of exposure.
(4)
The departments of labor and workforce development and health shall jointly compile and maintain a list of existing needleless systems and sharps with engineered sharps injury protection, that shall be available to assist employers in complying with the requirements of the bloodborne pathogen standards promulgated pursuant to this section. The list may be developed from existing sources of information, including, but not limited to, the federal food and drug administration, the federal centers for disease control, the national institute for occupational safety and health, and the United States department of veterans affairs.
Acts 1972, ch. 561, § 6; 1977, ch. 111, § 7; T.C.A., § 50-518; Acts 1999, ch. 37, § 1; 1999, ch. 520, § 41.