Author: Ron Stoker

It occurs in just a fraction of a second — first, you are taking a routine blood sample and then the patient moves and the needle slips, sticking the potentially infected needle deep into the base of your thumb. As a result, you could contract HIV and die! This scene or similar scenes occur to an estimated 2,000,000 healthcare workers worldwide every year! These injuries could be prevented if workers were aware and had access to safer needle and other safety devices. That is one reason that ISIPS, the International Sharps Injury Prevention Society is promoting the 11th Annual International Sharps Injury Prevention Awareness Month in December 2012.

The sharps injury awareness campaign is designed to provide information to healthcare workers, waste management workers, and others who are injured through needlestick and other sharps injuries each year. Hospitals, physician offices and others are invited to participate in providing educational articles, mini-posters with sharps safety information, etc. ISIPS is happy to place links on our website and in the newsletter to promote these activities. ISIPS will be joined by a variety of health organizations, journalists, and others in making the working public aware of the dangers of needlestick and other sharps injuries. The worldwide International Sharps Injury Prevention Awareness Month will start on the International AIDS Day, December 1, 2012. This is appropriate since needlesticks and other sharps injuries can result in the transmission of more than 20 different pathogens that have come from infected patients to workers via needles including HIV that can lead to AIDS.

Needlesticks and other sharps injuries are preventable! More than 80 percent of needlestick injuries can be prevented through the use of safer devices. Far too often, healthcare workers are becoming patients after being injured by contaminated medical sharps. Many other workers are also at risk from sharps injuries including cleaning staff, housekeeping staff, paramedics, law enforcement workers, and firemen.

“Healthcare workers and others invest so much of their time, energy, and talents into taking care of the needs of their patients,” said Ron Stoker, executive director of ISIPS. “We need to provide proper medical devices that protect the healthcare worker as well as providing treatment to patients. We believe that the occupational hazards for healthcare workers have been underestimated on a global basis. Sharps injuries create an enormous health and economic problem even without subsequent infection. There are increasing numbers of incidents where workers are pricked by needles or other sharp instruments that may have been in contact with infected blood or other body fluids. Most of these injuries can be prevented.”

ISIPS is a world leader in providing information about sharps injury prevention products. ISIPS has joined in the fight to reduce the number of accidental sharps injuries that occur globally by promoting the use of safety-engineered products and services. The ISIPS website promotes sharps injury prevention products and services. The ISIPS website www.isips.org gives the opportunity for journalists, healthcare workers, and others to receive a free, weekly email newsletter with information about needlesticks, sharps injuries, HIV and Hepatitis

“It is the mission of ISIPS to reach as many healthcare professionals as possible during the International Sharps Injury Prevention Awareness Month,” said Ron Stoker. “The goal is to increase awareness as well as educate staff to safer practices to prevent injuries, saving lives and heartache in the process. We hope to encourage professionals within all niches of healthcare–from the hospital setting to manufacturing companies and suppliers, as well as various organizations–to jump on the bandwagon and join us in this mission.”

For more information about the International Sharps Injury Prevention Awareness Month contact ISIPS at info@isips.org.

No one likes needles, so imagine the benefits of needle-free delivery systems, especially for chronic conditions where lifetime therapy is required, for example rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Patients already have enough stress to deal with and can definitely do without the added fear and anxiety associated with needles. Other advantages of course include the lack of contamination risks and needle stick injuries, plus disposals are easier when you don’t need a bin for sharps.

More

During the CDC Grand Rounds yesterday, an Injection Safety Checklist was discussed.

The  Injection Safety checklist items are a subset of items that can be found in the CDC Infection Prevention Checklist for Outpatient Settings: Minimum Expectations for Safe Care.

The checklist, which is appropriate for both inpatient and outpatient settings, should be used to systematically assess adherence of healthcare personnel to safe injection practices. (Assessment of adherence should be conducted by direct observation of

healthcare personnel during the performance of their duties.)

A copy of the checklist can be obtained here.

What kind of response have you had in your facility as you make an effort to comply with these safety practices?

About 1.7 million health care-acquired infections occur annually in the United States, resulting in nearly 100,000 deaths, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2002 with recent confirmation of the numbers. One of every 20 hospitalized patients will contract an infection.

A recent simulation using the  Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center was conducted to help understand how infections spread from hospital to hospital then to test strategies to reduce infection rates of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA, a bacterial infection that’s resistant to most antibiotics.

The simulation demonstrated that a hospital’s decision to test patients for MRSA upon admission then isolate those who test positive — a process known as “contact isolation” — can help to reduce the prevalence of MRSA not only at that location but in other hospitals.

How well does your hospital do with contact isolation?  Are all patients tested for MRSA upon admission and then isolated if they test positive?

I was recently reading an article online and came across this picture….

The author was a physician in the UK that was infected with HIV from a needlestick injury.   As I read the article and looked at the graphic above I got angry.   This poor doctor felt that this was HIS fault… I don’t think that is true!  I believe that many needlestick injuries are caused by the following factors:

• the management of the facility refused to supply proper safety productsc
• convetntional products are being used instead of safety products
• safety product features were not activated

What do you think?

Vaccinations for flu, tetanus and other common vaccines are increasingly taking place in non-medical settings such as supermarkets and drug stores. This added responsibility for pharmacists increases the risk of needlestick injuries (NSIs), puncture wounds often suffered while preparing or after use of a needle. NSIs can transmit bloodborne pathogens, including hepatitis C and HIV, from an infected patient to the person administering the vaccine.

A new report published in the November issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, found 33 NSIs occurred at 31 difference pharmacy locations of a nationwide retail pharmacy chain over an 11-year period. Over the same period of time, the chain administered more than 2 million vaccinations. Researchers calculated that the annual incidence of NSIs ranged from 0 to 3.62 per 100,000 vaccinations and 0 to 5.65 NSIs per 1,000 immunizing pharmacists. This incidence rate may represent an underestimation of NSIs since past studies have found that NSIs are often underreported by healthcare workers.

Most often NSIs were reported to have occurred after use and before disposal of the needle (58% of incidents) and during peak influenza vaccination months (79%).

“Pharmacists have become an emerging occupational group at risk of needlestick injuries,” said Marie de Perio, MD, medical officer in the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “While the incidence of needlestick injuries among employees at this retail pharmacy chain appears to be lower than that found in hospital settings, most of the injuries that did occur were likely preventable by following safe work practices.”

Researchers recommend that the company continue to follow existing CDC guidelines to improve its NSI prevention program and add additional information to track the circumstances of the injury to help determine contributing factors.

Source: Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America

The U.S. death toll from fungal meningitis linked to potentially contaminated steroid injections has risen by two to 23, with North Carolina reporting its first death, health officials said on Saturday.

Tennessee’s death total in the outbreak rose to eight, the highest state total, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on its website.
States reported 13 new cases of fungal meningitis, raising the total to 281. There are also three peripheral infections caused by injections into joints.
The outbreak stems from medications shipped by the New England Compounding Center (NECC) in Massachusetts. The company faces federal and state investigations and lawsuits over the tainted medications.

Indiana and New Hampshire reported two new cases apiece. Virginia, Tennessee and New Jersey each had three new cases, the CDC said.

Health regulators confirmed on Thursday the presence of the deadly Exserohilum fungus in vials of the NECC steroid used for pain injections. They estimate that as many as 14,000 people may have been exposed to the contaminated medication.
NECC and its executives face a civil suit in Massachusetts that seeks to freeze the officers’ personal assets. Florida, which has had three deaths and 17 cases, has barred NECC from doing business in the state.

Courtesy Reuters
What do you think will be the outcome of this problem? Do you think that additional regulations are needed to prevent this type of problem?

The Ebola virus continues to strike people in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since May, the World Health Organization has counted 72 confirmed, probable or suspected cases and 32 deaths.  As usual, a disproportionate share of those cases are health care workers — 23 of them, almost a third.

That’s because, despite elaborate protective garb and other precautions, it’s very hard for doctors, nurses and health aides to avoid virus-laden bodily fluids of Ebola patients or accidental needle sticks. That’s especially true at the beginning of an outbreak, when Ebola symptoms might be mistaken for malaria or something else.

“The repeating story is always that here’s incredible incidence among health care workers,” says Peter Jahrling of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, an expert on Ebola and similarly lethal viruses. “It’s usually the medical staff that bears the brunt of it.”

Apart from the tragedy of caregiver deaths, this has a ripple effect that helps keep an outbreak going.

Dr. Armand Sprecher of Doctors Without Borders says that’s because when health workers don moon suits and avoid all unnecessary contact with Ebola victims, that reinforces the community perception that the hospital is just the place people go to die.

“If you don’t hang IV lines and do things that look medical, if you just put people in beds and walk around in protective gear and don’t touch anybody, well, why would they want to come there?” Sprecher said in an interview with Shots from the Doctors Without Borders operations center in Brussels.

The perception is only fueled when people see health care workers die of Ebola in hospitals.

“We have a horrible time marketing our treatment unit because patients are not seeing a benefit to come in when we don’t produce a lot of survivors,” Sprecher says.

And if infected people stay away from hospitals, that just allows the virus to spread out in the community.

But the grim truth is doctors can’t do anything for Ebola patients except give them fluids and other supportive care. What’s needed, Sprecher says, is an effective treatment.

“If you had something in the refrigerator on standby, it might make it easier for the health care staff to engage with the patients,” he says, “if they knew there was something that might help them in the event of something awful happening.”

That might become possible. Fifty leading experts on Ebola and similar deadly viruses are gathering Wednesday and Thursday at the National Institutes of Health outside Washington, D.C., to assess several promising treatments for these diseases.

“This is really the first time we’ve ever all gotten together and addressed this problem,” says Jahrling, who is running the meeting.

Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration has just granted so-called fast-track review to one company for two of its experimental drugs for Ebola and Marburg viruses.

Jahrling says this week’s workshop will hash out what it would take to move one or more of the advanced treatments to the point where it could be tried in humans exposed to Ebola or its cousin Marburg virus.

One big challenge is to get the treatment — a vaccine, a cocktail of monoclonal antibodies or an antisense RNA-based drug — to where it would be needed.

That’s possible when the exposed person is a U.S. laboratory worker who has an accidental needle stick during a monkey experiment. But it’s a different story when Ebola pops up in a remote corner of Africa and no one can be sure when someone got exposed.

Animal experiments suggest that the Ebola antidotes will need to be given within 24 to 48 hours of exposure to the virus, before symptoms appear.

Another hurdle: Officials in the affected country would have to be convinced that giving a drug never used before in people was a safe and ethical experiment.

“These are the kinds of things that are going to come out in our workshop discussion,” Jahrling says, “whether you’re going to treat one occupational exposure or a village.”

The goal is to see if the groundwork can be laid for trying an experimental treatment for Ebola before the next outbreak — or the one after that.

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

It’s MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I’m Renee Montagne.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I’m Steve Inskeep.

An outbreak of the Ebola virus continues in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since last May, the government says the virus has struck 72 people and killed almost half of them. Although other diseases kill far more people, none is more feared than Ebola. And as NPR’s Richard Knox reports, nobody is more at risk than the health care workers who take care of the victims.

RICHARD KNOX, BYLINE: There was a poignant piece of good news the other day, in the midst of the Congo’s Ebola outbreak. A woman suffering from the disease gave birth in the 20-bed ward set up to isolate and treat victims.

DR. ALFONSO VERDU: It was the first time a pregnant woman was having a baby in an Ebola treatment center.

KNOX: That’s Dr. Alfonso Verdu of Doctors Without Borders. He’s speaking by satellite phone from Isiro, the ramshackle town in northeast DRC that’s the epicenter of the outbreak. Unfortunately, the mother died after giving birth. Her infant survives, but has Ebola. There’ve been five new confirmed cases of the disease this month. So Verdu says everybody in the surrounding area is still being urged to take precautions.

VERDU: We ask the people not to shake hands, not to touch them, not to hug each other. The authorities are respecting that. But also, the people in the shops is respecting that.

KNOX: Nobody is at higher risk of Ebola than the doctors and nurses and health aides who care for its victims. Despite elaborate precautions, Dr. Armand Sprecher says health workers often come into contact with infected bodily fluids or accidentally stick themselves with contaminated needles.

DR. ARMAND SPRECHER: The survival rate of exposure to Ebola is, you know, like a needle stick injury, it’s 100 percent fatal. Nobody’s ever survived one of those.

KNOX: Sprecher works in the operations center of Doctors Without Borders in Brussels. He says the dangers force health workers to don moon suits and avoid all unnecessary contact with Ebola patients. And that just reinforces the perception that hospitals are places where people with Ebola go to die.

SPRECHER: You know, if you don’t hang IV lines and do things that look medical, if you just put people in beds and walk around in protective gear and don’t touch anybody, well, why would they want come there?

KNOX: And if infected people stay away from hospitals, that just keeps the epidemic going because the virus spreads so readily out in the community. But the grim truth is doctors can’t do anything for Ebola patients except give them fluids and other supportive care. What’s needed, he says, is an effective treatment.

SPRECHER: If you had something in the refrigerator, on standby, it might make it easier for the health care staff to engage with the patients, if they knew that there was something that might help them in the event of something awful happening.

KNOX: That might become possible. Fifty leading experts on Ebola and similar deadly viruses are gathering today and tomorrow at the National Institutes of Health outside Washington to assess several promising treatments for these diseases.

PETER JAHRLING: You know, this is really the first time we’ve ever all gotten together and addressed this problem.

KNOX: That’s Peter Jahrling of the N.I.H., who’s running the meeting.

JAHRLING: Whenever there’s an outbreak and we go rushing into the scene to document what’s going on, we’re concerned that we really don’t have anything specific to offer. And if we did have something specific to offer and had reasonable expectation that it would work, I think it would probably be of mutual benefit to try to figure out how to get that material where it needs to be.

KNOX: It’s a big challenge. Animal experiments suggest treatment has to be given within 24 to 48 hours after infection, before symptoms appear. That’s possible when the victim is a U.S. lab worker who has an accidental needle stick during a monkey experiment. But it’s a different story when Ebola pops up in a remote corner of Africa and no one can be sure when someone was exposed.

And if researchers wanted to try a drug that had never been used in people before, officials in the affected country would have to be persuaded it was a safe and ethical experiment.

JAHRLING: These are the kinds of things that are going to come out in our workshop discussion, I think, whether you’re going to, you know, treat one occupational exposure, or a village.

KNOX: The goal is to see if the groundwork can be laid for trying an experimental treatment for Ebola before the next outbreak or the one after that.

Richard Knox, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio (Source).\\

(Courtesy NPR)

Most people are familiar with the famed “five second rule,” which states that if dropped food is picked up off the floor within five seconds of contact, it is still safe to consume.

Though a popular belief, a new study has found that germs often win the race.

The study, co-funded by Clorox and conducted by researchers at San Diego State University, found that germs do in fact attach themselves to edible items within that amount of time, the McClatchy-Tribune News Service is reporting.

Baby carrots were reportedly deposited on different surfaces, including a countertop, a kitchen sink, a table, and both a carpeted and tiled floor in the interest of testing the theory.

An additional carrot was kept clean, to serve as a constant.

Researchers found that germs affixed themselves to the carrots within five seconds of contact with different surfaces.

The countertop was found to be the dirtiest surface, with the carpeted and tiled floors following closely in second and third place.

According to a survey conducted in tandem with the study by researchers at SDSU, a reported 65 percent of parents admitted to implementing the five second rule in their homes, the News Service learned.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta also warns against the dangers inherent in germs contaminating foods.

On their official website, they recommend thorough and frequent cleanings of both surfaces and hands. Germs can also allegedly live in utensils and cutting boards, according to the CDC.

Courtesy CBS

Okay, since we all work in or around hospitals…. answer this question.  Do you practice the ‘5 second rule’ at home? Or if you drop that steak on the floor – do you wash it off and throw it on the grill?