Laboratories are havens of potential hazards. Every day, lab workers are exposed to chemical, biological, physical, and radioactive dangers that can pose harm to their health and well-being. To mitigate these risks, we’ve rounded up a list of the 10 best lab safety training courses in 2024.
Lab safety is greatly intertwined with chemical safety. This toxic chemicals course from SC Training (formerly EdApp) will lay out different ways that chemicals can enter the body and negatively impact a person’s health. It’ll also go over the safety measures that should be in place to prevent this from happening.
This interactive course will tackle the dose-response relationship, the different types of toxins, and the routes of chemical exposures. It’ll also discuss the workplace exposure standards that your teams should follow to guarantee safe lab work.
Verify this digital training course with SC Training’s practical assessments feature to check if your teams picked up the necessary skills and information. When the entire team is in the lab, you can simply scan each employee’s QR code, assess them using your mobile device, and track how they’re doing in no time.
Created by: SC Training (formerly EdApp)
Length: 5-10 minutes per lesson (self-paced)
Certificate: Available
Cost: Free (up to 10 users)
In clinical laboratories, workers handle blood samples and are at risk of exposure to bloodborne pathogens from accidental punctures. If you’re looking for free online medical laboratory courses, you can use this one to help teams minimize exposure by knowing how to protect themselves when working with contaminated sharps.
Specifically, this course will dive into the different diseases caused by BBP. It’ll also explain the importance of Hepatitis B vaccination protection and the procedures to follow during exposure incidents.
Created by: SC Training (formerly EdApp)
Length: 5-10 minutes per lesson (self-paced)
Certificate: Available
Cost: Free (up to 10 users)
Up next, this hazard communication course is created to help protect teams working in the laboratory and beyond. This training complies with standards set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and it aims to refresh your team’s knowledge on classifying chemicals and communicating hazard information.
This is perfect for teams who received their OSHA DOL card or OSHA training over a year ago. It aims to reinforce and improve upon everything they’ve learned about chemical labels and safety data sheets.
This course is vetted by the American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP) and is carefully created by SC Training’s team of expert instructional designers. So you don’t have to worry about quality.
To see how your teams perform during training, this course ends with a game-based assessment that helps them retain key information better. You can also track completion rates and average scores with just one click using its powerful reporting and analytics dashboard.
Created by: SC Training (formerly EdApp)
Length: 5-10 minutes per lesson (self-paced)
Certificate: Available
Cost: Free (up to 10 users)
This biosafety course is an online video recording of The Laboratory Safety Institute’s Biosafety in the Laboratory course. It includes an introduction to biosafety principles and a discussion of the disposal and shipment of biological materials.
Teams will also be trained to conduct biological risk assessments and will be given an overview of the guidelines and regulations for safely handling microorganisms. This course is on the expensive end at 600 USD. But since it's only a video recording, it may not be as flexible and engaging as the others on this list.
This OSHAcademy course details the OSHA standards and safety practices that should be observed in laboratories to help prevent injuries and illnesses. It’s a free course, but you do have to pay extra if you want to avail the original or PDF certificate.
Some of the topics included in this course are laboratory-related OSHA standards, the chemical hygiene plan, different types of hazards, and hearing and respiratory protection. It’s also catered to a wide variety of audiences, so you can use this course regardless if you’re an employee, supervisor, or manager.
Next is this chemical safety course hosted on Alison and created by the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL). It’s specifically designed to teach teams about avoiding fires and explosions. This course is divided into three modules—introduction, prevention, and course assessment.
It’ll discuss the differences between fires and explosions, modes of heat transfer, flammability characteristics, and proper use of fire extinguishers. This course will also tackle electrostatic ignition, the impact of streaming current, and more.
This BSI course will train lab workers on the different types of chemical hazards and risk assessments and management. They’ll also learn how to safely handle, store, and dispose of hazardous chemicals as set by regulatory standards.
It’s created for employees responsible for handling chemicals, such as lab workers. But it’s also useful for teams in environmental management. You can deliver this training in-house or through BSI’s online training service, depending on what your organization needs.
This is another OSHA-compliant course that discusses chemical safety. With this training, teams will be given a general overview of the requirements they need to meet according to the administration’s hazard communication and laboratory safety standards.
Upon finishing this course, employees should be able to recognize risks posed by chemical substances and familiarize themselves with hazard communication techniques. It should also introduce them to procedures for handling and storing chemicals and filling out safety data sheets.
With risks commonplace in laboratories, this risk assessment training will be beneficial for keeping teams safe inside the lab. Deploy this course to your teams to lessen the chance of incidents, injuries, and illnesses occurring within your workplace.
This course will include interactive and engaging lessons on the importance of risk assessments, the five steps of risk management, and the hierarchy of controls. It’ll also delve into the five-step process of assessing a situation and the different ways you can integrate the SafetyCulture app into your hazard control plans.
Created by: SC Training (formerly EdApp)
Length: 5-10 minutes per lesson (self-paced)
Certificate: Available
Cost: Free (up to 10 users)
Last but not least, this hazard communication course is carefully designed for teams in the healthcare industry. It can help workers in clinical labs better understand the hazard communication standard, read chemical labels, and use safety data sheets.
It’ll specifically teach your teams about “the right to know” act and about their right to be trained. With SC Training’s microlearning feature, workers can accomplish this course within minutes through highly targeted lessons that boost their retention while cutting training time in half.
Created by: SC Training (formerly EdApp)
Length: 5-10 minutes per lesson (self-paced)
Certificate: Available
Cost: Free (up to 10 users)
Over half a million workers are employed in laboratories in the US, according to data from OSHA. Within organizations and under the jurisdiction of specific regulatory agencies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), there are lab safety rules in place to keep teams inside labs safe and away from injuries and illnesses at all times.
Lab safety is crucial in keeping the workplace up and running. It’s essential in protecting the health and lives of your teams. Plus, it also helps in preventing harm to the environment and the people outside the laboratory.
Lab safety training is designed to equip teams in research, clinical, biosafety, and other laboratory environments with the essential knowledge and skills to stay safe and secure. It covers the safety protocols, procedures, and best practices that laboratory teams should follow to guarantee a safe work environment.
Like all forms of safety training, this structured training is necessary to protect employees and prevent accidents. But it’s also important to produce accurate results by avoiding contamination or improper handling that can compromise experiments. It’s crucial to reduce the costs caused by accidents in terms of medical and legal liabilities and equipment damage.
This type of training is specifically created to promote a culture of responsibility for all involved teams. This includes all lab personnel, supervisors and lab managers, teachers and professors, and even maintenance personnel and support staff.
To give you an overview of what you and your teams should expect for training, we’ve listed some of the most common safety practices that should be observed in all laboratories.
Lab safety training produces a chain reaction of safety and responsibility. By maintaining rigorous lab safety standards, you safeguard not only your teams. But also the wider community and environment from dangers that may be caused by hazardous materials, negligence, and unsafe practices.
Commit to protecting your teams with lab safety training. Join SC Training today!