Tyvek jump suites not PPE rated but must be worn in hospital OR'S , Labs & formula making room

[garbo]

At the large hospital that I retired from we had a long running concern with them insisting that e!ectricans wear Tyvac jump suites . boot covers & some kind of probably flammable head covering. Most of the circuits were 120 VAC along with some 208 Volts. The dozen or so in the strict safety department never could supply what was safe to wear if we had to troubleshoot or work on energized circuits. Did anyone else ever come across this. I never had to go into an OR during an operation and if we had to replace some bodine ballast they always had housekeeping sanitize the OR. Thanks.

 

[roger]

Infection control carries a lot of weight and rightfully so.

Coincidentally we had an accountant in our office who's wife died after acquiring Aspergillus in a hospital we worked at. Even though sanitizing takes place and there are numerous air quality steps taken the extent of the hospitals rules are mostly justified IMO.

 

[jim dungar]

The same issues occur in all food handling facilities, like dairy and meat packaging.

 

[petersonra]

The same issues occur in all food handling facilities, like dairy and meat packaging.

You need to find a way to mitigate all of the hazards that an employee might come across. You also need to not introduce potential pathogens into the food supply or into somebody's wound.

There might be some cases where you have to deal with situations where you cannot reduce one hazard without increasing it somewhere else. I don't think there's any good answer to this other than to look very closely at all of the hazards involved and do whatever you can to reduce them all. In the end you might have to accept what would normally be considered an unacceptable risk to avoid a worse problem.

 

[hbiss]

I was at a bakery once, up on a ladder cutting in a box on a sheetrock column about 10 feet up. I was required to wear a hair net. Below was a work table. So, as I'm cutting with my jab saw some guy sets a cake down on the table right below where I'm working and proceeds to frost it.

Good thing it was vanilla frosting...

-Hal

 

[kwired]

The same issues occur in all food handling facilities, like dairy and meat packaging.

FDA or USDA rules are generally less stringent than what some their third party certification companies will be looking for.

Kind of like NEC is minimum rules for most of us on installations, yet there can be other specifications by others that want you to go beyond code minimum requirements on an installation.

A place I do work at sometimes mostly wants hair nets and beard nets if that applies on everyone in the plant, other items for product protection can be task specific, but as an electrician doing something away from direct product effects I generally only need the hair net. If a machine is broke down and we are more directly effecting product, we usually do what we have to do and they might just need to clean up afterward before resuming running.

Footwear is something they pay a little attention to yet are not overly aggressive with it. They prefer footwear that doesn't get worn outside the plant as the general rule. Regular employees wear uniforms that they don't want worn outside the plant, yet outsiders like myself they don't make me change clothing, though I am not going to be in direct contact with product like their regular employees are.

My son happens to work for a food products company and they are very strict with some these things. And that company is more automated and less direct employee contact with product than the place I do work at based on what he tells me.

Don't get me wrong, when the third party certification companies conduct an audit, they are more stringent the couple days that inspection lasts. A lot of it is over things that won't necessarily mean automatic failure yet will help improve the final audit results.

 

[petersonra]

One food plant I did some work at did not allow any outer clothing worn outside the plant to be worn in the production areas by their workers. Workers had to change from their street clothes into company supplied uniforms when they got to work. They had company supplied safety shoes that were left on site for use in the plant.

However, they did not seem to care at all about what I was wearing. I did have to wear a white coat they gave me, and hair and beard nets.

 

[kwired]

One food plant I did some work at did not allow any outer clothing worn outside the plant to be worn in the production areas by their workers. Workers had to change from their street clothes into company supplied uniforms when they got to work. They had company supplied safety shoes that were left on site for use in the plant.

However, they did not seem to care at all about what I was wearing. I did have to wear a white coat they gave me, and hair and beard nets.

A little bit that way with the one client I was talking about earlier. If they want to be really strict they could, even with their own employees. If I were to normally be in more intimate contact with product they likely would be stricter with me. Most the time if handling open product they are wearing latex/nitrile gloves, dust masks are worn a lot but that is maybe more for personnel protection than for product protection they make a lot of powdered product here and is dusty in certain areas, particularly bagging areas, also a lot of powdered products get dumped as ingredients at front end of the processing.

 

[mayanees]

At the large hospital that I retired from we had a long running concern with them insisting that e!ectricans wear Tyvac jump suites . boot covers & some kind of probably flammable head covering. Most of the circuits were 120 VAC along with some 208 Volts. The dozen or so in the strict safety department never could supply what was safe to wear if we had to troubleshoot or work on energized circuits. Did anyone else ever come across this. I never had to go into an OR during an operation and if we had to replace some bodine ballast they always had housekeeping sanitize the OR. Thanks.

You were correct in your questioning of the flammability of the outer covering we're handed when we enter an operating room in PPE.
NFPA 70E section 130.7 Personal and Other Protective Equipment (9) (b) states:
Outer Layers. Garments worn as outer layers over arc-rated clothing, such as jackets, high-visibility apparel, or rainwear, shall also be made from arc-rated material. The arc rating of outer layers worn over arc-rated clothing as protection from the elements or for other safety purposes, and that are not used as part of a layered system, shall not be required to be equal to or greater than the estimated incident energy exposure.

So it must be arc-rated, which I assume is non-flammable. This happens to me when we open covers at a hospital where we're doing an arc flash Study. I'm suited in 20 calorie PPE but I'm handed a disposable suit to put over my PPE for the purpose of sanitation I suppose. Fortunately it's air conditioned, but unfortunately now you've got me wondering if it's arc-rated!

 

[kwired]

That sort of brings us to what does flammable mean? Most anything will burn if you get it hot enough and have something for it (usually oxygen) to react with.

I would guess a Tyvek suit will burn but may not be too easily ignitable.

 

[hbiss]

That sort of brings us to what does flammable mean?

How about the guys who wear nitrile or vinyl gloves all the time? How flammable are they? I don't think they should be worn around anything that can arc or when soldering/brazing like for plumbing and HVACR work.

-Hal

 

[paulengr]

At the large hospital that I retired from we had a long running concern with them insisting that e!ectricans wear Tyvac jump suites . boot covers & some kind of probably flammable head covering. Most of the circuits were 120 VAC along with some 208 Volts. The dozen or so in the strict safety department never could supply what was safe to wear if we had to troubleshoot or work on energized circuits. Did anyone else ever come across this. I never had to go into an OR during an operation and if we had to replace some bodine ballast they always had housekeeping sanitize the OR. Thanks.

70E speaks to “PPE conflict”. Generally they recommend deferring to other PPE requirements because the threats are more immediate. For instance despite the potential risk you go ahead and wear a respirator. It should be obvious that there is a low probability of arc flash but an immediate danger if you are required to wear a respirator.

I find Tyvek stuff troubling. First off my experience with Tyvek suits is they stop nothing except sweat. They allow carbon from brushes, grease, and oils all to pass right through. It does stop drywall dust and paint but that’s about it. I’m sure this invalidates any purpose in using them in a hospital setting. This isn’t based on any manufacturers instructions. I’ve used them.

So I’m struggling here. Tyvek suits offer no protection to or from you in terms of infection or contamination in an operating room setting. They certainly elevate your risk of burn injuries not only when arc flash PPE is required but even when it isn’t. What is the risk from not wearing it?

 

[petersonra]

I don't believe they are supposed to prevent microbes from transmitting either to or from you. It is more about larger particles. Just like hair nets don't prevent dandruff flakes from falling off your head, but it does reduce the risk of hair and dandruff mixing with foods.

It is not perfect. People that work in clean rooms wear space suits that completely isolate the wearer from the environment.

 

[paulengr]

In 2015 and older editions of 70E they had a system called H/RC which had categories of PPE from 0 to 4. That still sort of exists but I want to focus on “0”. This category was for conditions under 1.2 cal/cm2. This is for control circuits, receptacles, and other low level conditions where arc flash injuries are minor if they happen. Companies were just recognizing 70E from 2006 when OSHA issued the first fines until 2025. There was a lot of back and forth.

The inclusion of level 0 caused all kinds of problems because it suggests electrical workers should wear no melting PPE when doing energized work. So suddenly lots of questions such as whether or not it was safety for non-electrical workers to operate light switches and coffee makers. This went on until Al over at E-Hazard requested a change and said that CLOTHING is not PPE. With that view, level zero disappeared and with it, anything goes.

There is still an informational note suggesting nonmelting clothing is a good idea but it isn’t Code and nobody wants to revisit the level 0 mess. So as of right now unless there is an arc flash hazard (level 1 or higher) Code doesn’t support your case.

Finally 70E does address “PPE conflicts”. It basically states that when a conflict exists, 70E should be ignored. But the logic here is important. The chance of a shock or electrical burn is about 1 in 100,000 workers per year according to ESFI data. The chance of an injury from say working around poisonous gas is much higher. So faced with say wearing a respirator, 70E says wear the respirator and take your chances with the electrical injury. I think this should be common sense. But in your case the tyvek suits aren’t stopping an actual hazard. It’s secondary protection where arc flash and shock protection are primary. So this exception doesn’t seem to apply. If you need to be wearing level 1 or higher, the tyvek stuff needs to go.

The tyvek suits sound like surgical masks. If you’ve been respirator trained you know that surgical masks, N95, etc., are dust masks. They don’t stop anything but nonhazardous nuisance dusts. First year medical students are taught that scrubs and surgical masks are medical theater, something left over from the flu pandemic. Respirators are what you need for actual protection (with medical screening, fit tests, training). None of your tools are sterilized and the area would have to be cleaned after the job is done. So it sounds to me like more medical theater. I’d push the issue of 70E and arc flash and shock protection but recognize this is all a very grey area of the Code.