More Passive Safety-Engineered Sharps Devices Needed

​Forty-two percent of reported percutaneous injuries involving safety-engineered sharps occur after device use and are likely preventable through consistent and effective use of safety-engineered technology, according to the results of a study published in the May 2013 American Journal of Infection Control. The researchers used the Exposure Prevention Information Network (EPINet) needlestick surveillance data to conduct a retrospective review of 3,297 percutaneous injuries from hollow-bore safety-engineered devices that occurred between 2001 and 2009. Excluding injuries that occurred during device use or between procedural steps when safety device activation was not possible, 71.8% of injuries to physicians, 58.2% of injuries to nurses, and 45.8% of injuries to phlebotomists occurred when an available safety-engineered sharps device was either only partially activated or not activated at all.