[Focus on risk assessment in health environments: results and perspectives of a multicenter working group]

The hospital risk assessment (VdR) is certainly a relevant issue concerning the activities of prevention for the health of healthcare workers in relation to biological risk. The aim of this paper is to provide an up-date of the issue, based on the suggestions of recent literature about the rules ratified by the new legislative decree and data supplied by the Group of 10 Hospitals participated in this multicenter study. From the analysis of data on healthcare settings (HCS) participating in the project the following considerations can be formulated: i) All HCS considered VdR from biological agents. The method recommended in the Guidelines SIMLII 2005 is the most followed ii) To grading the risk, the use of invasive procedures for carrying out the analysis results is a necessary element iii) the operators classified as exposed to biological risk, and therefore subject to health surveillance, represent almost all of workforce in 7 out of 10 HCS. The subgroup believes that VdR must be conducted in close collaboration with the occupational physician and should represent a worthwhile investment with spin-off character on prevention, decision making, empowering. The presence of environmental requirements and organizational procedures should be considered, so that HCS is enabled for an effective risk management, without which risk assessments cannot be performed. The method of VdR mentioned in the guidelines MLIS 2005, besides being the most widely used by the company participating in the study, still has practical reasons and opportunities to justify its use. The HCS group felt the need to propose an implementation of the definition of invasive procedures and EPP, together with individual assessment. Flexibility was suggested in identifying different levels of risk with the involvement of occupational physicians, especially in the presence of EPP, also in order to plan content and frequency of health surveillance.