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C o n t e n t s

Guidance for Responding To Unannounced
Regulatory Inspections of Your Facility

Contributed by Associate Vice Provost, Director of EH&S, Larry Gibbs

Please read these guidelines (HTML) (PDF) posted on our website and distribute within your area.

EH&S Partners with City of Palo Alto's
Mercury Thermometer Exchange Program

Contributed by Environmental Specialist, Heather Perry

Environmental Health and Safety's laboratory mercury thermometer exchange program has recently been expanded to include campus and neighboring residents. In partnership with the City of Palo Alto's Regional Water Quality Control Plant (RWQCP), residents can now drop their mercury thermometers at EH&S and receive a FREE digital replacement thermometer. Anyone in Palo Alto's RWQCP's service area may participate, so bring in your thermometers and help in the fight against mercury contamination! Make an appointment with EH&S by contacting Heather Perry, Environmental Specialist, at 3-1308 or hperrry@stanford.edu.

EH&S' laboratory mercury thermometer exchange program has replaced over 1000 thermometers with non-mercury alternatives and was awarded the 2002 Environmental Achievement Award by Region 9 of the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Workers' Compensation Health Provider Location Added

Contributed by Industrial Hygienist, Esther Luckhardt

Effective February 2, 2004, medical services for employees with work-related injuries or illnesses will be provided at the Palo Alto offices of Sequoia Occupational Health Services, 454 Forest Ave. Hours for this facility are Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The phone number is 566-0288.

Medical services for work-related injury or illness will continue to be provided at Sequoia Occupational Health Services at 633 Veterans Blvd. in Redwood City. Hours at the Redwood City facility are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays. The phone number is 364-1565.

For life-threatening injuries, employees should go to the nearest emergency facility. For more information, see the Risk Management department's website at:
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/Risk-Management/docs/workcompben.shtml.

For a map and directions to the new Palo Alto location, please see the Risk Management page:
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/Risk-Management/docs/forms/authmed.html (link no longer available)

(Stanford Report, 2/28/04)

Prevent Blindness;
Wear Your Safety Eyewear at Work and Home

Contributed by Communications and Training Specialist, Susie Claxton

According to Prevent Blindness America, more than 2,000 U.S. employees sustain job-related eye injuries each working day, making workplace injury a leading cause of ocular trauma, visual loss, and blindness. Many of these injuries can be prevented by the use of appropriate protective eyewear. In the coming months, we will feature information on appropriate eyewear for hazardous work areas, which include shops, construction sites, and laboratories.

However, don't forget to think about your and your family's eye safety at home. Please see the Blindness America web page where it states, "Because there are good eye safety regulations in the workplace, the home is the source of the fastest-growing number of eye injuries."

Incident Command System @ Stanford

Contributed by Asst. Univ. Fire Marshal, Alison Pena

The Incident Command System, known as ICS, was developed after Southern California experienced two weeks of devastating wild-land fires in 1970. This multi-jurisdictional disaster was the driving force for the development of an improved interagency incident management system. Developed as an all-hazard system, it is adaptable to all types of emergency incidents. Agencies who routinely deal with emergency response scenarios utilize the ICS on a day-to-day basis. Their familiarity with the system enables them to easily transition its use to large-scale emergency situations.

Stanford University utilizes a hybrid of the Incident Command System adapted to our campus organization and management system in its annual Emergency Exercises. The ICS provides the framework for an effective organizational structure. Public service agencies have been perfecting and utilizing the Incident Command System for 30 years. As a private entity, Stanford University can increase its understanding and usage of the ICS structure to enable itself to deal more effectively with its own emergencies until outside resources are available. Expertise in the structure and use of ICS will enable the EOC Command Team to coordinate more effectively, both with its internal operations and with public agencies.

As any event moves through stages of development, the structure of the Incident Command System is flexible enough to broaden its scope. Staff, too, must be flexible so that they can perform alternate jobs when necessary. Alternate successors to positions are essential when an emergency extends into the second or third day of continuous operations. A three-hour exercise held once a year, such as Stanford practices, is just a taste of what emergency services providers' deal with daily. Mastering the functions of the Incident Command System will better prepare University staff to deal effectively when faced with a large-scale event.

During the upcoming year, the Emergency Management Team will be focusing on better understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the various functions of the Incident Command System and applying that learning to operation of the Emergency Operations Center.

About SafetyTrain Web Based EH&S Training

Communications and Training Specialist, Susie Claxton

SafetyTrain is a web-based program for environmental health and safety training.

It has four courses:

• General Safety/Emergency Preparedness (EHS.103)
  
• Chemical Safety(EHS.105)
  
• Biosafety (EHS.107)
  
• Compressed Gas Safety (EHS.153)

All of these programs existed previously as classroom training, however, now they can be taken via the web. SafetyTrain is available to Stanford faculty, staff, students, and others working at Stanford as visiting researchers, etc. A SUNet ID is necessary to access SafetyTrain. The program has a registration feature that asks for Stanford identifying information such as the trainee's name, work department and location, supervisor name, and contact information such as phone numbers and email addresses. Upon registering, the trainee answers questions about their work at Stanford to help the trainee identify what health and safety training courses they need. The system then sends an email to both the trainee and their supervisor notifying them of their training requirements. The system also creates a customized front page for each trainee that includes their specific required SafetyTrain courses listed. The trainee can return to this page anytime from any computer to continue training, start new training, reference information, create bookmarks of pages, etc. Please visit the SafetyTrain page on the EH&S web site to access more information about SafetyTrain.

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