D. Implementing a Personal Respiratory Protection Program—Whenever personal respiratory protection is necessary as an additional isolation precaution for protection of health-carefacility workers potentially exposed to tuberculosis,an effective protection program must be developed, implemented, personal respiratory administered, and periodically reevaluated (55,57,89):
To be effective, any respiratory protection program, must be supervised by a qualified individual who has sufficient knowledge of respiratory protection. When necessary, employers should obtain the required expertise (e.g., professionals such as industrial hygienists, infection control practitioners , or safety specialists who have been specifically trained in personal respiratory protection) to ensure that the personal respiratory protection program is effectively developed, implemented, administered, and periodically reevaluated. The services of a physician are required to conduct the medical surveillance portion of the program.
Information on how to develop and manage a respiratory protection program is available in technical training courses covering the basics of personal respiratory protection, which are offered by organizations such as NIOSH, OSHA, and the American Industrial Hygiene Association. In addition, similar short courses are available from private contractors and universities.
In order to be effective and reliable, any respiratory protection program must contain at least the following eight elements (55,57,89):
1. Standard Operating Procedures: Written standard operating procedures should contain all information needed to maintain an effective respirator program to meet each user's individual requirements. These procedures should be written so as to be useful to those persons responsible for aspects of the respirator program such as, but not limited to: (1) the program administrator, (2) those responsible for fit testing wearers' face seals and training the respirator wearers, (3) respirator-maintenance workers, and (4) the supervisors
