scope:

Purpose

a. This NASA Procedural Requirements (NPR) describes Occupational Health (OH) Program (OHP) procedural requirements necessary to effectively carry out the mission of the Office of the Chief Health and Medical Officer (OCHMO) and ensure the scope and quality of services provided by the OHP employees at Centers are optimal. It provides direction to the OHP and allied health professionals throughout the Agency in accomplishing their daily tasks to ensure the health of employees and a safe work environment while allowing flexibility for establishment and implementation of local procedures and processes to meet needs specific to Center operations.

b. This NPR establishes minimum requirements for conducting OHP services which encompass seven discipline-specific areas: Occupational Medicine (OM), Industrial Hygiene (IH), Health Physics (HP), Health Promotion, Wellness, and Fitness (HPWF), Federal Workers' Compensation (FWC), Food Safety (FS), and Employee Assistance Program (EAP). This Preface, Chapter 1, General, and Chapter 7, Occupational Health Review Process, apply to all disciplines.

c. The OCHMO issues policy and provides guidance, technical support, and periodic reviews of Centers' OHPs. Periodic reviews are not considered direct oversight of Center programs and/or processes. Oversight and implementation of policies, set herein, are the responsibility of Centers, Component Facilities, Technical and Service Support Centers, other NASA installations, the NASA Office of Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Management and Oversight (NOJMO), and OCHMO for NASA Headquarters (HQ) (hereinafter, Centers). Similarly, in this document, the officials in charge of each of these entities are collectively referred to as Center Directors, and civil servant Medical Directors and the designated civil servant authority for a specific Center are collectively referred to as Medical Directors.

Applicability

a. This directive is applicable to NASA Headquarters and NASA Centers, including Component Facilities and Technical and Service Support Centers.

b. This directive is applicable to the JPL, a Federally Funded Research and Development Center, only to the extent specified in the NASA/Caltech Prime Contract.

c. This directive is applicable to other contractors, recipients of grants or cooperative agreements, or parties to other agreements only to the extent specified in contracts, grants or cooperative agreement, or other agreements.

d. This NPR is applicable to all employees, both civil service and contractors, per their contract (hereafter, called employees). Where statements apply to only one group of employees, terms "civil service employee" and "contractor" are used.

e. Portions of this NPR, as specifically indicated in the text, are applicable to visitors.

f. The section of this NPR requiring the mandatory use of an Electronic Health Record System (EHRS) does not apply to JPL.

g. In this directive, all mandatory actions (i.e., requirements) are denoted by statements containing the term "shall." The terms "may" or "can" denote discretionary privilege or permission, "should" denotes a good practice and is recommended, but not required, "will" denotes expected outcome, and "are/is" denotes descriptive material.

h. In this directive, all document citations are assumed to be the latest version unless otherwise noted.