How Should Health Care Organizations Protect Personnel in Environmental Services and Related Fields?

ABSTRACT

This commentary on a case discusses oft-overlooked roles of health care organizations' personnel in environmental services and related fields, such as waste management. Such personnel are not protected in the same ways frontline clinicians are, although their risk of exposure to pathogens in the course of their work can be high. This article describes why such personnel should be included in planning personal protective equipment access and in administrative and engineering operations concerning infectious disease emergence, containment, and management.