Checklist helps HCWs avoid pathogen exposures
Checklist helps HCWs avoid pathogen exposures
Emphasis is on blood-drawing devices, IV catheters
The Checklist for Exposure Prevention inserted in this month’s issue of Hospital Employee Health is designed to help health care professionals develop guidelines and priorities for preventing exposures to bloodborne pathogens and to make the best use of available resources for purchasing safety devices. (See checklist, inserted in this issue.)
"It can be a very complicated process," according to Jane Perry, director of communications at the International Health Care Worker Safety Center (IHCWSC) at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, which formulated the checklist. "We placed particular emphasis on blood-drawing devices and IV catheters, because they are among the devices that present the highest risk for infecting employees with bloodborne pathogens."
Perry compiled the checklist under the guidance of Janine Jagger, MPH, PhD, director of the IHCWSC and a leading expert in the field of preventing occupational exposures to bloodborne pathogens. Jagger also is a member of Hospital Employee Health’s editorial advisory board.
"The guidelines are based on information gathered from the EPINet database, research in medical literature, and government recommendations from agencies such as OSHA [Occupa tional Safety and Health Administration], the FDA [Food and Drug Administration], and the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Preven tion]," Perry adds.
EPINet is a computerized surveillance program, developed by Jagger, for tracking percutaneous injuries and blood and body fluid exposures. More than 1,500 hospitals nationwide use EPINet. The Center, which collects and analyzes data from 70 hospitals that participate in a voluntary data-sharing network, publishes the findings in its journal, Advances in Exposure Prevention. The version of the checklist that appears here recently was updated.
"One of the most frequent requests we get is for reprints of the checklist," says Perry. "It’s clear to us that infection control and employee health professionals are looking for this type of information. It fills an important need."
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