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Wednesday, 18 May 2011 10:36

Support the American Nurses Association

Safe Needles Save Lives

Safe Needles Save Lives

Join ANA in the fight for a safer workplace

In 2010, ANA commemorated the 10th anniversary of the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act. This law improved protection against preventable needlestick and other sharps injuries that expose health care workers to potentially deadly bloodborne pathogens.

 


The law requires employers to use work practice controls and engineered safety devices to minimize or eliminate the risk of exposure. Also, frontline nurses now are included in the process to identify, evaluate and select the safest devices.

But more than 10 years later, injuries still are occurring too often. Nearly two-thirds of nurses reported being accidentally stuck in a 2008 ANA survey. And a recent study shows that injuries actually have increased 6.5 percent in surgical settings after the legislation.

ANA is seeking to ensure that health care employers comply with the law and federal workplace standards. Nurses who are in position to detect and report unsafe conditions must be active participants to ensure incidents are reduced.

Here we provide the tools and resources to help increase your knowledge of the law and OSHA’s Bloodborne Pathogens standard, and to become champions for needlestick safety and prevention in your workplace.

 

Visit NursingWorld.org to for links to educate yourself about the reality and safety standards for needle use in medical settings. 

Search For A Cure's two cents: Now that we have developed single use needles by which the blade retracts itself into the device on removal from the skin, perhaps it is time to mandate a law by which non retractable needles are banned from production, reducing the chance of accidental injury and needle sharing to prevent harm. 

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