OHSS Clearance Requirement
UCSC uses an online risk assessment and medical screening tool known as:
Occupational Health Surveillance System (OHSS)
Everyone with a CruzID and Gold password can use the OHSS system.
Which IACUC protocols and personnel OHSS applies to
To obtain UCSC IACUC approval, personnel listed on UCSC IACUC full use (with contact) protocols (i.e. full use form) must fill out an OHSS assessment and get clearance.
Vertebrate sample use or observation only protocols do not require completion of OHSS unless you are notified to do so by EH&S. Vertebrate sample use and observation protocols will be reviewed by EH&S for health and safety concerns (biosafety, field safety, general safety, etc). If additional information is necessary or medical surveillance is deemed appropriate, EH&S will contact the PI directly to request details.
Some situations may not require full OHSS review for personnel. If all or some of your research involves one of the following, please review the alternative requirements:
Instructions for setting up an OHSS assessment
To complete the occupational health assessment, the principal investigator/supervisor needs to create a risk assessment for their animal use protocol(s), then add participants. If the PI/supervisor has several similar protocols, the PI/supervisor can create just one risk assessment for all participants. This is done by using the "Copy Assessment" feature.
Each participant will receive an email from the system prompting online completion of the health questionnaire. This information will then be reviewed online by the physician, and medical clearance status provided. Health information can only be viewed by the physician, in accordance with HIPAA regulations.
Note: It’s a known issue that emails from the OHSS system sometimes end up in spam and junk email folders. The address is "no-reply@riskandsafety.com". Be sure to check your folders as appropriate in the days following the OHSS enrollment and submission process. You can also whitelist the address to your safe sender list.
More detailed instructions can be found on the EH&S Animal Research web page and the EH&S OHSS web page.
Contact
Please contact the campus biosafety officer with any questions at (831) 459-3542 or biosafety@ucsc.edu.
