Section 216-RICR-40-10-14.3 - DefinitionsA. Wherever used in these rules and regulations, the terms listed below shall be construed as follows: 1. "Act" means R.I. Gen. Laws § 23-1-39 entitled "Tattooing/and/or Body Piercing."2. "Aseptic technique" means the practice of preventing the transmission of infectious agents into the human body by using standard aseptic procedures.3. "Body piercing" means the act of penetrating the skin, excluding the earlobes, to make, generally permanent in nature, a hole or mark.4. "Body piercing establishment" means any establishment operated by any person for the purpose of offering or conducting body piercing.5. "Body piercing technician" means an individual who is registered in this state to practice body piercing in accordance with the requirements herein.6. "Communicable disease" means any disease caused by an infectious agent which may be transmitted directly or indirectly from one individual to another.7. "Director" means the Director of the Rhode Island Department of Health.8. "Division" means the Division of Professional Regulation at the Rhode Island Department of Health.9. "Instruments" means body piercing equipment. Such equipment includes, but is not limited to, piercing needles, forceps, hemostats, tweezers, or other implements used to pierce, puncture, or be inserted into any part of the human body for the intended purpose of making a permanent hole. Such equipment also includes studs, hoops, rings or other decorative jewelry, materials or apparatuses inserted into any part of the human body for the intended purpose of placement in the hole resulting from piercing.10. "Jewelry" means any personal ornament inserted into a pierced area.11. "Needle" means the implement used to pierce or puncture a hole in any part of the human body.12. "Permanent hole" means a hole produced by piercing or puncturing any part of the human body, with instruments intended to leave an opening in body tissue(s) into which an appropriate device or apparatus may be inserted. Permanent hole would include any body part newly pierced or punctured which is undergoing a healing process; and, any piercing whether or not removal of a device or apparatus from the perforation would result in fusing or healing of the tissue or skin structures.13. "Person" means any individual, trust or estate, partnership, corporation (including but not limited to associations and joint stock companies), state, or political subdivision or instrumentality of the state.14. "Registration agency" means the Rhode Island Department of Health. "Registration agency" and "licensing agency" are synonymous.15. "Sharps" means any object that can penetrate the skin, including but not limited to, needles, scalpel blades, lancets, glass tubes that could be broken during handling that have been removed from their original sterile containers.16. "Sterilization" means the use of procedures that destroy all microbial life, including viruses, on the equipment or device.17. "Universal precautions" means a set of guidelines and controls, published by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that outline certain practices that health care workers should employ in order to prevent parenteral, mucous-membrane, and no intact skin exposure to blood borne pathogens. The method of infection control requires the employer and employee to assume that all human blood and specified human body fluids are infectious for HIV, HBV, and other blood borne pathogens. Precautions include: hand washing, gloving, personal protective equipment, injury prevention, proper handling and disposal of needles and other sharp instruments and blood and body fluid contaminated products.216 R.I. Code R. § 216-RICR-40-10-14.3