Categories: Healthcare-associated infections, Injection Safety
November 28th, 2012 10:28 am ET -
.
The Impacts of Unsafe Medical Injections in the U.S.
Author: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Injection safety is part of the minimum expectation for safe care anywhere healthcare is delivered; yet, CDC has had to investigate outbreak after outbreak of life-threatening infections caused by injection errors. How can this completely preventable problem continue to go unchecked? Lack of initial and continued infection control training, denial of the problem, reimbursement pressures, drug shortages, and lack of appreciation for the consequences have all been used as excuses; but in 2012 there is no acceptable excuse for an unsafe injection in the United States.
Eradicating unsafe practices will take a multifaceted approach, and now is the time for action to ensure that no additional patients are harmed through unsafe injections. Today, the CDC and the Safe Injection Practices Coalition released new materials to make it easier for clinicians and others working in healthcare to learn and train others about following safe injection practices.
Two Birds with One Stone: Bloodborne Pathogen Training + Patient Safety – Enhanced PowerPoint
Healthcare providers or training managers who need to keep staff current on bloodborne pathogens training can now use a new presentation: “Safe Injection Practices: Protection Yourself and Your Patients – A Bloodborne Pathogens Training Activity.” This training was created to remind healthcare providers that measures they take to protect themselves from bloodborne pathogens and other exposures also protect patients from healthcare-associated infections. View the training on the One & Only Campaign’s website.
Post a Comment -
Read more
Categories: Healthcare-associated infections, Injection Safety, Outpatient Care
July 16th, 2012 11:35 am ET -
.
Michael Bell, MD
Author: Michael Bell, MD,
Associate Director for Infection Control at CDC′s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion.
CDC released a report today detailing two outbreaks that occurred when healthcare providers failed to follow basic injection safety elements of Standard Precautions. These breaches resulted in life-threatening – yet completely preventable – infections in a number of patients receiving injections for pain relief. How does this happen in today’s advanced medical settings?
In both outbreaks, healthcare providers were splitting single-dose/single-use medication vials meant for one patient into new doses for multiple patients. There was a lack of awareness that this practice puts patients at risk of infection. Because injections were prepared with new needles and syringes and, in one of the clinics, in a separate “clean” medication preparation room, providers thought they were being safe. However, these preservative-free medications are not safe for multi-patient use. Ultimately, ten patients in these two clinics required hospitalization for treatment of mediastinitis, bacterial meningitis, epidural abscess, septic arthritis, bursitis, and sepsis – all severe infections caused by either Staphylococcus aureus (Staph) or its drug-resistant form MRSA.
6 Comments -
Read more
Categories: Healthcare-associated infections, Injection Safety, State HAI Prevention
June 1st, 2012 11:02 am ET -
.
Peter Graves MD
Guest Author – Peter Graves, MD
Chairman, Department of Emergency Medicine
Academic Faculty, Kent Hospital Emergency Medicine Residency Program
Kent Hospital
Warwick, RI
One of the great “truisms” of Life is that we often don’t know—what we don’t know. In other words, we can’t imagine the scope of a problem if we are under the assumption that it doesn’t even exist.
No provider goes to the hospital or office with the intent of harming patients. So I was shocked to learn that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tracked over 40 outbreaks of infectious disease caused by unsafe injection practices including hepatitis B (HBV), hepatitis C (HCV) and bacterial infections in the past 10 years in the United States. It is fundamentally unacceptable that these outbreaks were because healthcare providers failed to follow Standard Precautions when preparing an injection. Those lapses in basic infection control include reusing needles and syringes from patient to patient or misusing single-dose and multi-dose vials. This boggles the minds of many practitioners who may feel they are following correct procedures—when in fact they might not be doing so at all.
5 Comments -
Read more
Categories: Healthcare-associated infections, Injection Safety, Outpatient Care
May 31st, 2012 9:40 am ET -
.
One & Only Campaign
Author – Joseph Perz, DrPH, MA
Prevention Team Leader for the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
You might be thinking, “Is a knowledge refresher on injection safety really needed? Providers all know how to give safe injections!” Sadly, this is not the case. We at CDC have seen outbreak after outbreak related to providers not following safe injection practice standards as outlined in CDC guidelines. We also see patient notifications that inform patients that they “may have been exposed – please be tested.” Failures in basic patient protections that we see include the reuse of syringes or needles; the reuse of single-dose/single-use vials; and mishandling of multi-dose/multi-use vials. With every outbreak or patient notification event that has occurred over the past 10 years, we have wondered how many other infections and exposures are slipping by, unnoticed.
The CDC and the Safe Injection Practices Coalition have released a safe injection toolkit geared specifically for busy medical practices. This free toolkit features a Power Point presentation with recorded audio, convenient for use during staff meetings, in-services, and other educational seminars. Other pieces include a no-cost Medscape CME activity, a safe injection practices training video, and a number of eye-catching posters to remind staff about the basics of injection safety.
2 Comments -
Read more
Categories: Injection Safety
January 6th, 2012 7:58 am ET -
.
Michael R. Cohen, RPh, MS, ScD, FASHP
Author – Michael R. Cohen, RPh, MS, ScD, FASHP
President, Institute for Safe Medication Practices
There’s an alarming and widespread misunderstanding about insulin pens by some healthcare workers who work in hospitals: that sterility can be maintained between patients simply by affixing a fresh needle on a previously used pen. Despite numerous warnings from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), CDC, the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP), and insulin pen manufacturers themselves, evidence continues to mount that this dangerous practice is adversely affecting thousands of patients (Read recent clinical reminder).
Just this past month we received two new reports in which a nurse knowingly used the same insulin pen for more than one patient. As is typical in these scenarios, the nurses thought the practice was acceptable if they simply changed the needle between patients and kept the same insulin pen. In one of these cases it was later determined that the original patient had human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)! Follow-up tests were being conducted on the affected patient. The nurse involved in the event reported that sharing insulin pens was routine practice at another hospital where she had worked, as long as new needles were used. In the other report, two pens were used to administer insulin to three patients in an inpatient setting, even though each pen had a patient-specific label. One of the pens was borrowed from another patient while waiting for the pharmacy to dispense one for a new patient.
2 Comments -
Read more
