IBFCSM CHSP study guide
IBFCSM CHSP · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Certified Healthcare Safety Manager (CHSP) is a professional credential offered by IBFCSM for people who carry responsibility for safety, life safety, and regulatory readiness inside hospitals, clinics, long-term care, and other care settings. It suits safety officers, environment-of-care managers, facilities and engineering leaders, infection preventionists with safety duties, and compliance staff who want a single credential that spans the whole healthcare safety agenda rather than one narrow specialty. The IBFCSM CHSP study guide has 10 sections and about 3,008 words.
01Healthcare Safety Management and Leadership
Domain 1 examines how healthcare organizations build, resource, and continuously improve a safety management program. Expect questions on governance accountability, the environment of care committee, safety culture, just culture, risk assessment, performance improvement, and how leaders use data to set priorities.
281 words, about 1 min02Regulatory Compliance and Accreditation (Joint Commission, CMS, OSHA, NFPA)
Domain 2 tests how healthcare organizations meet external requirements from CMS, The Joint Commission, OSHA, and NFPA, and how those requirements interact. Expect questions on deemed status, Conditions of Participation, tracer methodology, plans of correction, and the difference between accreditation standards and law.
305 words, about 2 min03Infection Prevention and Control in Healthcare Settings
Domain 3 covers preventing healthcare-associated infections through standard and transmission-based precautions, hand hygiene, environmental cleaning, sterilization, surveillance, and occupational exposure control. Expect questions on the chain of infection, PPE, isolation, multidrug-resistant organisms, and OSHA bloodborne pathogens requirements.
289 words, about 1 min04Hazardous Materials and Waste Management
Domain 4 tests how organizations inventory, label, store, use, and dispose of hazardous materials and waste. Expect questions on OSHA Hazard Communication, safety data sheets, secondary container labeling, biomedical waste, RCRA hazardous waste, spill response, and special hazards such as formaldehyde, mercury, and chemotherapy agents.
323 words, about 2 min05Fire Safety and Life Safety Code Compliance
Domain 5 tests fire safety and Life Safety Code compliance in healthcare occupancies. Expect questions on NFPA 101 features, fire alarms and sprinklers, extinguishers, evacuation versus defend-in-place, fire drills, hot work permits, and interim life safety measures.
306 words, about 2 min06Occupational Health and Employee Safety
Domain 6 covers employee health and safety programs: injury and illness recording, exposure management, respiratory protection, tuberculosis screening, immunizations, ergonomics, hearing conservation, and workplace violence. Expect questions on OSHA recordkeeping, post-exposure prophylaxis, fit testing, and confidentiality of medical records.
309 words, about 2 min07Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response
Domain 7 tests all-hazards emergency preparedness: hazard vulnerability analysis, emergency operations planning, command structure, communications, surge capacity, evacuation and sheltering, training, exercises, and after-action improvement. Expect questions on CMS emergency preparedness Conditions of Participation and the difference between exercises and actual events.
296 words, about 1 min08Patient Safety and Risk Management
Domain 8 covers patient safety and risk management: event reporting, root cause analysis, failure mode and effects analysis, disclosure, claims management, and high-risk clinical processes. Expect questions on sentinel events, near misses, just culture, and the difference between reactive and proactive analysis.
308 words, about 2 min09Environmental Safety, Security, and Workplace Violence Prevention
Domain 9 covers environmental safety, security, and workplace violence prevention. Expect questions on security risk assessments, access control, ligature and elopement risk, emergency department safety, duress alarms, reporting, and the roles of security, clinical staff, and leadership.
297 words, about 1 min10Medical Equipment and Utility Systems Safety
Domain 10 tests medical equipment and utility systems safety: inventory, preventive maintenance, calibration, recalls, incident reporting, and the safety of electrical, water, HVAC, medical gas, vacuum, and emergency power systems. Expect questions on NFPA 99, maintenance intervals, utility failure, and equipment incident investigation.
294 words, about 1 min