1. It's not just needles and scalpels.
When you think of
sharps injuries, needlesticks and scalpel blades probably come to
mind as the clear and present dangers in the OR. And for good
reason. Needlesticks are the No. 1 cause of injury among operat-
ing room personnel and scalpels are the second most frequent.
Drill bits? They rank near the bottom of the sharps injury list, but
they can injure and we've got the picture atop this page to prove
it: a bit sticking straight up out of a scrub tech's gloved palm like
a tiny javelin.
The bit was still spinning when the surgeon whipped around to
pass the drill off to the unsuspecting tech, whirring fast enough to
puncture the glove and penetrate the tech's skin. "The physician
probably still had his foot on the power button when he pushed
the drill toward the scrub tech's hand," says Susan Angelides,
MSN, BSBM, CNOR, RNFA, a perioperative services consultant
based in Scottsdale, Ariz., who supplied us with the photo.
2. Sharps safety extends beyond the OR.
Sharps injuries
can occur when and where you least suspect them, not just with-
in the confines of the OR walls, but wherever people use, dispose
of, disassemble and disinfect sharps. Year after year, 1 in 4 of all
sharps injuries occur downstream to the non-user, according to
sharps injury incident data from the International Safety Center
Exposure Prevention Information Network (EPINet). "Keep in
mind that the use and activation of safety mechanisms and proper
disposal protect not just the user of the device, but those who
come into contact with that device throughout its lifespan," says
EPINet.
In sterile processing, for example, a tech can easily reach his
hand into a tray and get poked by a concealed sharp. Jenny
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