Preventing Sharps Injuries

Mohohammadnejad, E., Dopolani, F. N., (2015). Risk factors of needle stick and sharp injuries among health care workers. (2015). Journal of Nursing & Midwifery Sciences, 2(1), 34-39

Drawing out blood can be very dangerous for the patient and for the phlebotomist, these injuries can happen before drawing out blood, right after they pull the needle from the vein, when they’re transferring the blood into a tube and they forget to throw away the needle. “Even with legislation and the advancements in safety designs, needlestick injuries still occur” (Daugherty). Although, since 2,000 there has been many technology and legislation advancements to the needles, there hasn't been a way to prevent the injuries from happening because they are needles and when it touches the skin with enough pressure it will go into the skin. Research shows that “In phlebotomy procedures, 62% of injuries occur within seconds after the device is removed

Flames of evolution in patient care have been fanned into a wholesome revolution in the nature of nursing care due to the ever changing healthcare needs and demands of patients. This has led to a paradigm shift from generalized patient care to a patient centered approach. The increase in interaction and individualized patient management has improved healthcare delivery. However, on the flipside, this has not come with new challenges. Healthcare providers are increasingly being exposed to new health hazards as new and sophisticated treatment approaches are developed. Injuries due to sharps are of significance in nursing practice. The International Healthcare Workers Safety Center (2010) reports that an average of 27.97 per 100 licensed beds sharps injuries occurred in 2007 while in 2008 17.2 per 100 licensed beds sharps injuries were recorded. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2010), 385,000 healthcare workers are injured due to sharps annually in the United States. This puts the healthcare personnel at risk of contracting infections such as Hepatitis C and B from contaminated objects. In regard to this concept, this paper will explore sharps safety at the clinical site with a view of using evidence based practice to creating awareness on the need for sharps safety in hospital settings.

What are standard precautions? How do they impact the nursing profession? These are all valid questions that need further investigation. Set forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), standard precautions are a set of practices that help guide nurses to prevent and control infectious diseases from spreading (Efstathiou, Papastavrou, Raftopoulos, & Merkouris, 2011, p. 1). There is no question that nurses are at a particularly higher risk of occupational exposure. Koutoukidis, Stainton, and Hughson (2016) explain that regardless of the patient’s diagnosis, presumed infectious status, and the setting in which the patient is in, nurses should always implement standard precautions (p. 483). The high stake profession leaves nurses

Over the last several years, a wide variety of health care organizations have been facing a number of challenges. This is because of pressures associated with: rising costs, increasing demands and larger numbers of patients. For many facilities this has created a situation where patient safety issues are often overlooked. This is because the staff is facing tremendous amounts of pressure, long hours and more patients. The combination of these factors has created a situation where a variety of hospitals need to improve their patient safety procedures. In the case of Sharp Memorial Hospital, they are focused on addressing these issues through different strategies. To fully understand how they are able to achieve these objectives requires looking at: specific ways the organization has responded to the crisis in medical errors, their definition of patient safety, the causes of errors, systematic barriers and transformations that have been adopted. Together, these different elements will provide the greatest insights as to how the facility is coping with the crisis in patient safety.

The injured health care professional may eventually need to change their career path secondary to permanent MSD’s (Menzel & Nelson, 2010). Recent studies report a sixty thousand dollar annual reduction in medical costs when safe staffing is maintained (ANA, 2011). Additionally, reduced malpractice claims, payouts, readmission, denials and fines will be experience when adequate staffing is maintained (ANA, 2011). Most noteworthy, the patient’s may experience less pain or suffering and therefore better outcomes can be anticipated with safe staffing. This sends a clear message to management; powered devices are an investment that can reduce staff injuries while also ensuring the safe handling of the patients as well.

Compared to other members of the community of health care nurses are at a significant risk of needle stick injury because of their frequent performance with vein punctures and taking care of patients suffering from different infectious diseases. Needles may cause injury to you or to someone else if they were not properly discarded after use and can also cause an injury if you do not use gloves to protect your hands while you work with needles. If a medical professional gets stuck by a needle, then they need to wash the area thoroughly with soap and contact their healthcare provider as soon as

Nurses are at the forefront of patient care whilst they are in the healthcare system and to ensure that patients remain safe should be of high priority to all nurses. Nurses have specific responsibilities in looking after patients, and nurses must ensure they comply and adhere to the policies, procedure and guidelines which are set out by the HCS. Nurses must ensure that they are always working in accordance to the RNs standards of practice, and by doing this it will help the nurse in delivering clinical safety to all patients (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA), 2016). Standards 2 & 6 relate to the nurse providing a safe environment for patients, engaging in quality nursing care and to engage in effective therapeutic relationship with their patients. When nurses follow the standards as set by the NMBA, they are ensuring that they are adhering to policies and procedure as set out by the healthcare provider which will in turn be ensuring preventable harm to the patient does not occur. (NMBA,2016)

Nurses play a pivotal role in preventing hospital-acquired infections (HAI), not only by ensuring that all aspects of their nursing practice is evidence based, but also through nursing research and patient education.Hand hygiene is widely acknowledged to be the single most important activity for reducing the spread of disease.Personal protective equipment (PPE) is used to protect both yourself and your patient from the risks of cross-infection.Gloves should be worn whenever there might be

Needle Sharps injuries (NSI) in Australia. How can safety practices be improved to reduce injury to healthcare providers.

Abstract: Attention has been brought to the public knowing about employee health care workers have been exposed to needle stick and sharp object injuries, but there is little knowledge and attention among medical students. Medical students volunteered to take a survey to help determine the frequency of these injuries that occur. There were one-hundred six students out of one-hundred seven students that responded to the survey. Out of those students, thirty-three percent of the students reported that they have had one or more injuries due to sharp objects or being stuck by a needle. There were

Hospitals are cutting back cost and when they do, they cut back on staffing which becomes a patient safety issue. The understaffing caused by burnout, is one of the problems leading to a higher rate of infectious diseases. The main reason for this is that burned out nurses are having a mental lapse when it comes to hand hygiene. Plus, the nurses do not have the time to enforce the infection control practices and procedures within their own team (Wood, 2012). The understaffing problem within the nursing community doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon. A 2012 report in the American Journal of Medical Quality projected a shortage of registered nurses to spread across the country by 2030 (Gupta, 2014).

Nursing and healthcare continue to change on a daily basis. The one thing that has remained constant during these changes is maintaining the safety of our patients. By maintaining their safety, nurses must ensure that they are keeping up-to-date with the changes in technology now being introduced in healthcare, new and emerging diseases, new equipment, and changes in treatment modalities. One such responsibility is ensuring that nurses do not operate equipment they were not oriented to or trained to use in an effort to prevent injury patients. Nurses and other healthcare professionals are being held accountable for practicing within their scope of practice based on their licensure regulations, and the company policies and procedures. Therefore, nurses are responsible for their professional growth and practice by ensuring that they comply with the necessary standards required by their profession.

Of all the hospital acquired conditions or “never-events” identified by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), infections are possibly the most frightening to consider. This holds true for lay people as well as medical professionals, perhaps because of our perception that controlling the risk for infection is more difficult than controlling non-infectious risk for injury conditions that usually result from preventable human error. Safety awareness and improved education can help on multiple fronts in the fight against most hospital acquired conditions, but with infections, the

Nursing and healthcare continue to change on a daily basis. The one thing that has remained constant during these changes is maintaining the safety of our patients. By maintaining their safety, nurses must ensure that they are keeping up-to-date with the changes in technology now being introduced in healthcare, new and emerging diseases, new equipment, and changes in treatment modalities. One such responsibility is ensuring that nurses do not operate equipment they were not oriented to or trained to use in an effort to prevent injury patients. Nurses and other healthcare professionals are being held accountable for practicing within their scope of practice based on their licensure regulations, and the company policies and procedures. Therefore, nurses are responsible for their professional growth and practice by ensuring that they comply with the necessary standards required by their profession.