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This material is for training purposes only. Its purpose is to inform employers and employees of best practices in occupational safety and health and general OSHA compliance requirements. This material is not a substitute for any provision of the Occupational Safety and Health Act or any standards issued by OSHA.
MODULE 4: ADDITIONAL RECORDING CRITERIA

(9)Needlestick and Sharps Injury Recording Criteria.

  • When an injury is diagnosed later as an infectious bloodborne disease, you must update the classification on the 300 log to reflect the new status or classification.


  • You must record all work-related needlestick injuries and cuts from sharp objects contaminated with another person’s blood or other potentially infectious material (OPIM) (See 29 CFR 1910.1030, Bloodborne Pathogens).


  • You must enter the case on the OSHA 300 Log as an injury.


  • To protect the employee’s privacy, do not enter the employee’s name on the OSHA 300 Log (see the requirements for privacy cases in 29 CFR 1904(14)(a) through (14)(i).
NOTE: If you have an sharps exposure incident that is not a needlestick, you must still record it if it results in death, days away from work, restricted work or transfer to another job, medical treatment beyond first aid, loss of consciousness, or diagnosis of a significant injury or illness, such as HIV, hepatitis B, or hepatitis C.

(10) Medical Removal Recording Criteria. If another OSHA standard requires the medical removal of an employee, you must record the case on the OSHA 300 Log.
  • (a) You must enter each medical removal case on the OSHA 300 Log as either a case involving days away from work or a case involving restricted work activity, depending on how you decide to comply with the medical removal requirement. If the medical removal is the result of a chemical exposure, you must enter the case on the OSHA 300 Log by checking the “poisoning” column.


  • (A) If the case involves voluntary medical removal before reaching the medical removal levels required by an OSHA standard, do not record the case on the OSHA 300 Log.
(11) Occupational Hearing Loss Recording Criteria.

Hearing loss must be recorded on the OSHA 300 Log by checking the hearing loss column when:
  • An annual audiogram reveals a Standard Threshold Shift (STS) in either or both ears; and
  • The hearing level in the same ear is 25 dB above audiometric zero.
  • In determining whether an STS has occurred, you may correct for the age of the employee. Use the appropriate table in Appendix A to determine the age adjustment. If the STS is 10 dB or more after the age correction, it still meets the criteria for recordability.
If you retest the employee’s hearing within 30 days of the first test, and the retest does not confirm the recordable STS, you are not required to record the hearing loss case on the OSHA 300 Log. If the retest confirms the recordable STS, you must record the hearing loss case within 7 calendar days of the retest. If subsequent audiometric testing performed under the testing requirements of the noise standard (See CFR 29 1910.95) indicates that an STS is not persistent, you may erase, delete, or line-out the recorded entry.

If a physician or other licensed health care professional determines that the hearing loss is not work-related or has not been significantly aggravated by occupational noise exposure, the case is not work-related. Do not record it on the OSHA 300 Log.

(12) Tuberculosis Reporting Criteria.

If any of your employees has an occupational exposure to anyone with a known case of active tuberculosis (TB), and that employee subsequently develops a tuberculosis infection, as evidenced by a positive skin test or diagnosis by a physician or other licensed health care professional, you must record the case on the OSHA 300 Log by checking the “respiratory condition” column. Do not record a pre-employment positive skin test because the exposure was not in your workplace. Line out or erase a recorded case if you prove that:
  • the worker lives in a household with a person diagnosed with active TB;
  • the Public Health Department identifies the worker as a contact of an individual with a case of active TB unrelated to the workplace; or
  • a medical investigation shows that the employee’s infection was caused by exposure to TB away from work, or proves that the case was not related to the workplace TB exposure.
(13) You are in luck. This paragraph in the rule was removed!

There's a lot of detailed requirements discussed above. Now let's see how well you've mastered the material. Remember, don't stress out over the module quizzes: they're only for your review. I don't grade them! ;-)



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