ORLANDO, FL, May 2, 2013 — With the therapeutic use of lasers on a rapid rise, the Laser Institute of America is unveiling another of its highly popular and convenient online safety courses exclusively for training medical personnel.
LIA’s Medical Laser Safety Awareness course is a two-hour learning experience that offers the ultimate in flexibility for the busy professional. Health care personnel who use or encounter lasers will get a complete overview of the safe use of these devices, especially in the operating room and ambulatory surgical centers.
The need for Medical Laser Safety Officers (MLSOs) to provide training for their employees spurred this addition to LIA’s broad array of laser safety resources, says Education Director Gus Anibarro.
He explains “Many [MLSOs] do not come from a training background, and [they] think that they must provide the training themselves. This is not true.” Thanks to LIA’s carefully prepared, cutting-edge course, an MLSO can satisfy his or her training mission but “does not actually have to create a PowerPoint™ presentation, stand in front of his [or her] folks and lecture on safety.”
With LIA’s easy-to-use interface, MLSOs also can train their employees without having to send them away to a specialized course or bring in an expensive expert. Users simply register and pay online at www.lia.org, then proceed through the course slides at their own pace.
“The course is based on the ANSI Z136.3 standard Safe Use of Lasers in Health Care,” Anibarro says. “This standard is recognized by OSHA and The Joint Commission as the authoritative laser safety standard in the United States.”
The recently updated Z136.3 standard guides medical personnel in how to assess and control beam and non-beam hazards during patient care with lasers. Hazards range anywhere from a laser igniting a drape or an endotracheal tube to sparking an airway passage fire. Knowing how to identify and prevent such hazards is vital, for example, to a nurse in charge of one or more operating rooms where lasers will be active.
Not only is the course affordable — $70 per person — users can listen and take notes at work, home or anywhere they have computer access. Follow the audio program in sequence, skip ahead to a particular chapter, review previous chapters — students decide how they wish to complete the course. Meanwhile, the course administrator controls all the records of those taking the course and receives certificates upon completion. Newly appointed MLSOs can even take the course first, then sign up other employees to train them with LIA materials instead of creating an entire course from scratch.
“LIA is providing a tool for the LSO that he [or she] can use to best train his staff without having to reinvent the wheel,” Anibarro says. And since LIA is the secretariat of the ANSI Z136 laser safety standards, you know you are receiving proper training from the foremost experts in the field.
LIA, the recognized leader in laser safety education and resources since 1968, launched the new course on April 29, 2013. To register, visit www.lia.org/education or call 1.800.34.LASER.
About LIA
Laser Institute of America (LIA) is the professional society for laser applications and safety serving the industrial, educational, medical, research and government communities throughout the world since 1968. www.lia.org, 13501 Ingenuity Drive, Ste 128, Orlando, FL 32826, +1.407.380.1553.
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