The 2024 List of Hazardous Drugs in Healthcare Settings has been updated by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The purpose of the list is to help companies discover medications that pose a risk to the health and safety of employees who handle them. The 2016 list has been updated with 25 new medications, 12 of which have special handling instructions from the manufacturer. Additionally, seven medications will be taken from the list. Since the list’s original release in 2004, it has raised awareness among healthcare workers and their employers about the health dangers associated with handling dangerous pharmaceuticals and has given them health protection strategies.
“This list is an invaluable resource for millions of workers in healthcare settings who may potentially be exposed to hazardous drugs in the course of their work,” said NIOSH Director John Howard, M.D. “The updates to the list published today completes a suite of tools that we encourage workers and their employers to use to manage risk and be protected from potentially hazardous exposures.”
Reorganization of drug placement in a table and a decrease to two tables are among the updates in the 2024 list. Additionally, this document updates the American Hospital Formulary Services (AHFS) categorization and drug nomenclature of numerous medications and lists those that have been approved under a biologics license application (BLA).
From January 2014 to December 2015, medications that received new approvals or safety-related warnings from the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration were examined for this update.
This guide is one of several resources created to help recognize dangerous medications and handle them properly:
This publication is part of NIOSH’s efforts to provide resources and tools to support healthcare employers’ and workers’ health and safety.
For more information, visit the NIOSH Hazardous Drug Exposure in Healthcare webpage.
