Needle safety protects workers and patients
Needle safety protects workers and patients
In issuing an alert requiring compliance with federal needle safety regulations, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations cited the following key points:1
— While precise numbers are not available, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that each year health care workers sustain more than 600,000 injuries involving contaminated needles or sharps, and approximately one-half of these injuries go unreported. While most needlestick injuries involve nursing staff, other health care workers also sustain injuries.
— Fortunately, injuries involving patients are less frequent. The Joint Commission’s sentinel event database includes two cases — one involving an infant and one a child. Techniques that are used to protect health care workers from needlestick- and sharps-related injuries can also protect patients.
— The risk of infection from a contaminated needlestick or sharp is dependent upon the pathogen involved, the severity of the injury, and the availability and use of appropriate prophylactic treatment. Hollow-bore needles — primarily hypodermic needles attached to disposable syringes and winged-steel or butterfly-type needles — are the cause of the majority of reported injuries. Injuries can occur while manipulating the needle in the patient, handling or passing the device after it has been used, recapping the instrument, and transferring a body fluid between containers, or from improper disposal or during clean-up following a procedure.
— All health care organizations should have a needlestick prevention program in place as part of their compliance with the existing bloodborne pathogen standard established in 1991 by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that requires organizations to use safety-engineered sharps and needleless systems when possible. Strategies to help prevent needlestick and sharps injuries include:
- Eliminate the use of needles when safe and effective alternatives are available.
- Implement the use of devices with safety features and evaluate their use to determine which are most effective and acceptable.
- Analyze needlestick- and sharps-related injuries in your workplace to identify hazards and injury trends.
- Set priorities and strategies for prevention by examining local and national information about risk factors for needlestick injuries and successful intervention efforts.
- Ensure that health care workers are properly trained in the safe use and disposal of needles and sharps.
- Modify work practices that pose a needlestick injury hazard to make them safer.
- Establish procedures for and encourage the reporting and timely follow-up of all needlestick and other sharps-related injuries.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of prevention efforts and provide feedback on performance.
- Encourage health care workers to report any hazards from needles they observe in their work environment and to participate in bloodborne pathogen training and follow recommended injury prevention practices, including hepatitis B vaccination.
Reference
1. Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Sentinel Alert. Preventing needlestick and sharps injuries August 2001; Issue 22. Web site: www.jcaho.org/edu_pub/sealert/sea22.html.
Subscribe Now for Access
You have reached your article limit for the month. We hope you found our articles both enjoyable and insightful. For information on new subscriptions, product trials, alternative billing arrangements or group and site discounts please call 800-688-2421. We look forward to having you as a long-term member of the Relias Media community.