More than 1,000 healthcare workers are risking bloodborne pathogens infection every day due to needlestick injuries. But the truth is that there’s a simple way to make much of the problem go away … the blunt truth, that is.
Yesterday was Memorial Day. That’s traditionally the start of the summer activities season, and for most of us, it means car trips and outdoor activities.
Not America’s emergency rooms, clinics, and other healthcare facilities. For them, it means an upsurge in bloody wounds to treat from car crashes and other outdoors mishaps. It also means an increased risk of contracting bloodborne diseases, often from needlestick incidents.
Recently the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), a part of the Centers for Disease Control that often advises OSHA, discussed the importance of safety around “sharps”, the generic term for medical needles, scalpels, and other bladed instruments. “Each year, an estimated 365,000 needlesticks and other sharps-related injuries are sustained by hospital-based healthcare personnel,” noted the website, cdc.gov/niosh, “an average of 1,000 sharps injuries a day.”
Employees teach themselves about bloodborne pathogens, as demanded by OSHA’s standard, with BLR’s Interactive CD Course: Bloodborne Pathogens program. Try it at no cost or risk. Click for details.
Those most at risk, NIOSH reported, were surgeons, nurses, surgical techs, and anesthesiologists. They could have added those who use sharps outside the operating suite … paramedics, doctors in an office environment, and their support personnel.
Some 51-77 percent of these injuries happen, says NIOSH, while loading needles into holders, passing instruments around, leaving the needle in the surgical field, or while suturing toward an assistant during surgery. Overfilled or poorly placed sharps containers are also part of the problem. But, says NIOSH, there is also a solution … blunt tip needles.
As their name implies, blunt tips are not as sharp as the traditional suture needle. But leading medical authorities say they’re just as useful in repairing wounds to less dense tissue, such as muscle, where a sharp point is not needed to penetrate. “Studies have shown … a substantial reduction or elimination of injuries to personnel with minimal adverse effects on patient care,” says NIOSH. It’s no wonder, therefore, that authoritative members of the surgical community have endorsed blunt tips.
NIOSH’s parent, OSHA, however, goes further than citing peer endorsements in pushing use of the needles. While they grant that no regulation requires blunt-tip use, they note that “employers … have the responsibility under the bloodborne pathogens standard to evaluate the use of blunt tips … as well as other appropriate safer medical devices.” That’s as near a requirement as the agency can get without going through the new reg process. Doctors are wise to take note. “As with any new device,” OSHA adds, changing needles “must include training of staff in proper use and follow up.”
Of course, in considering new training, it’s also wise to take note of the extensive training already required under the bloodborne pathogens standard. To this end, we’d like to make you aware of what’s likely the best program available to educate your workers on the risk of exposure and the steps they can take to avoid it. It’s BLR’s Interactive CD Course: Bloodborne Pathogens.
Try this unique, self-directed, self-testing program at no cost or risk. Click for info.
In 80 self-directing, highly interactive slides on a CD, trainees learn such key concepts as Universal Precautions, Other Potentially Infectious Material (OPIM), what PPE is available to protect against infection and when and how to use it, and what to do should an exposure occur.
The material is both informative and engaging. The computer even allows for “hands-on” time asking trainees to “dress” a typical worker in PPE to fit several situations. To assure learning, users are asked to answer five “knowledge demonstrations” along the way, which will not let them proceed in the course, unless completed successfully.
Workers who’ve used Interactive CD Course: Bloodborne Pathogens have both learned from and enjoyed using it, while the program’s completely self-directed nature freed their supervisors from standing over them during the training.
The program is available for a 30-day, no-cost (not even return postage), no-risk trial in your workplace. Click here and we’ll be happy to set things up for you.