Rhode Island Code of Regulations › Title 216 - Department of health › Chapter 40 - Professional licensing and facility regulation › Subchapter 10 - Facility regulation › Part 14 - Registration of Body Piercing Technicians and Body Piercing Establishments (216-RICR-50-10-3) › Section 216-RICR-40-10-14.3 - Definitions

Current through June 14, 2024
A. Wherever used in these rules and
				  regulations, the terms listed below shall be construed as follows:
1. "Act" means R.I. Gen. Laws §
											23-1-39 entitled "Tattooing/and/or Body Piercing."
2. "Aseptic technique" means the practice of
				  preventing the transmission of infectious agents into the human body by using
				  standard aseptic procedures.
3.
				  "Body piercing" means the act of penetrating the skin, excluding the earlobes,
				  to make, generally permanent in nature, a hole or mark.
4. "Body piercing establishment" means any
				  establishment operated by any person for the purpose of offering or conducting
				  body piercing.
5. "Body piercing
				  technician" means an individual who is registered in this state to practice
				  body piercing in accordance with the requirements herein.
6. "Communicable disease" means any disease
				  caused by an infectious agent which may be transmitted directly or indirectly
				  from one individual to another.
7.
				  "Director" means the Director of the Rhode Island Department of
				  Health.
8. "Division" means the
				  Division of Professional Regulation at the Rhode Island Department of
				  Health.
9. "Instruments" means body
				  piercing equipment. Such equipment includes, but is not limited to, piercing
				  needles, forceps, hemostats, tweezers, or other implements used to pierce,
				  puncture, or be inserted into any part of the human body for the intended
				  purpose of making a permanent hole. Such equipment also includes studs, hoops,
				  rings or other decorative jewelry, materials or apparatuses inserted into any
				  part of the human body for the intended purpose of placement in the hole
				  resulting from piercing.
10.
				  "Jewelry" means any personal ornament inserted into a pierced area.
11. "Needle" means the implement used to
				  pierce or puncture a hole in any part of the human body.
12. "Permanent hole" means a hole produced by
				  piercing or puncturing any part of the human body, with instruments intended to
				  leave an opening in body tissue(s) into which an appropriate device or
				  apparatus may be inserted. Permanent hole would include any body part newly
				  pierced or punctured which is undergoing a healing process; and, any piercing
				  whether or not removal of a device or apparatus from the perforation would
				  result in fusing or healing of the tissue or skin structures.
13. "Person" means any individual, trust or
				  estate, partnership, corporation (including but not limited to associations and
				  joint stock companies), state, or political subdivision or instrumentality of
				  the state.
14. "Registration
				  agency" means the Rhode Island Department of Health. "Registration agency" and
				  "licensing agency" are synonymous.
15. "Sharps" means any object that can
				  penetrate the skin, including but not limited to, needles, scalpel blades,
				  lancets, glass tubes that could be broken during handling that have been
				  removed from their original sterile containers.
16. "Sterilization" means the use of
				  procedures that destroy all microbial life, including viruses, on the equipment
				  or device.
17. "Universal
				  precautions" means a set of guidelines and controls, published by the Centers
				  for Disease Control (CDC) that outline certain practices that health care
				  workers should employ in order to prevent parenteral, mucous-membrane, and no
				  intact skin exposure to blood borne pathogens. The method of infection control
				  requires the employer and employee to assume that all human blood and specified
				  human body fluids are infectious for HIV, HBV, and other blood borne pathogens.
				  Precautions include: hand washing, gloving, personal protective equipment,
				  injury prevention, proper handling and disposal of needles and other sharp
				  instruments and blood and body fluid contaminated products.