[Proposal of a computerized system for chemical risk management at biomedical laboratories]

The current italian and european directives require as an essential part of preventive procedures the risk assessment in every work setting. This procedure may be however difficult to be applied because of variability and specificity of work environment, work organisation, chemicals ect. It is true for the biomedical laboratories when the attention is focused on the identification and exposure evaluation of chemicals related to the analytical process, i.e. the first step to reach an accurated risk assessment. The starting point often has been the list of theoretically used compounds, which could be not exhaustive, or they could not reflect type and amount of chemicals really used. The proposed system is directly managed by the laboratory workers, by an labeling and reading bare code system. By the software, information about type, location, storage of the compounds present in the laboratory and amount used by each laboratory worker (by a personal card) are easily available. The proposed system should ensure precision and method in recording type and amount and in approximating the contact--absorption of the compounds used by each operator. By improving the chemical exposure assessment, a more accurate health and epidemiological surveillance would be possible. Finally, the system, by enabling the management of purchase, storage, utilization, waste of chemicals, could become an useful device for the quality assurance procedures.