Never administer medications from the same syringe to more than one patient, even if the needle is changed or you are injecting through an intervening length of IV tubing.Follow proper infection control practices and maintain aseptic technique during the preparation and administration of injected medications.The specific guidelines for injection safety from the CDC are: This will help to prevent ‘forgetting’ to change to new equipment if feeling pressured. The best habit is to always use a new needle and syringe to enter any medication vial.
The CDC’s One and Only Campaign motto of “One needle, one syringe, only one time” underlines the importance of never reusing a syringe and/or needle – not even to obtain medication for the same patient. This survey points to some of the misperceptions held by healthcare personnel when it comes to injection safety. About 6% of nurses and 5% of physicians indicated that entering a multidose vial with a used syringe is an acceptable practice, even if the vial is used for more than one patient. Amazingly, although most participants indicated that syringe reuse for more than one patient is not an acceptable practice, 12.4% of physicians and 3.4% of nurses surveyed indicated this occurs regularly in their workplace. The survey asked participants about the acceptability of specific injection practices as well as the frequency of some injection practices at their facility. Healthcare personnel don’t go to work with the idea of harming a patient, so how does this happen? A 2017 survey of physicians and nurses in 8 states revealed numerous unsafe practices.
This is just a smattering of the more recent literature. All seven patients required debridement and IV antimicrobial therapy and were hospitalized with an average length of stay of 6 days.Īs you can see, the literature is replete with articles describing unsafe injection practices. Infections among the seven Orthopedic Clinic patients manifested as septic arthritis or bursitis in the knee, nip, ankle, or thumb. The length of hospitalization for these patients ranged from 9-41 days. Three patients from this clinic developed an MRSA infection and required inpatient care for severe infections, including acute mediastinitis, bacterial meningitis, epidural abscess, and sepsis. The Pain Management clinic infections were a result of using single-dose vials of radiologic contrast media for more than one patient. In 2012, the CDC reported invasive Staphylococcus aureus infections among patients in an Arizona Pain Management clinic and an Orthopedic Clinic in Delaware. During the investigation, the Colorado Department of Health found that syringes and needles were used on multiple patients to administer IV medications.
#Four principles of asepsis license#
Poor injection practices are so widespread and concerning that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a letter in 2012 to providers and suppliers clearly stating that all types of facilities will be cited under the Infection Control Standard for unsafe injection practices.Ī Colorado oral surgeon surrendered his license after a former employee informed the health department of unsafe injection practices during oral and facial surgery procedures that occurred over a span of 11 years. The main injection safety violations that were associated with the outbreaks included inserting used needles into a multi-dose medication vial or solution container and using a single needle/syringe to provide intravenous (IV) medications to multiple patients. The hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) outbreaks occurred among patients at a private medical practice, a pain clinic, an endoscopy center, and a hematology/oncology clinic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) added safe injection practices to Standard Precautions in the 2007 Isolation Precaution guidelines as a result of 4 outbreaks in the United States. Can you imagine receiving this type of notification? Getting Started with Safe Injection Practices have been notified to seek screening for hepatitis B (HBV), hepatitis C (HCV) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) due to poor infection control practices including syringe reuse and misuse of medication vials. What went through your mind when you read this title? Perhaps you thought: “Really?” or “Seriously, in developed countries?” The reality is that more than 150,000 patients in the U.S.