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An article published in the Spring 2014 issue of the Journal of the Association of Occupational Health Professionals in Healthcare discusses how a systematic, data-driven approach and the subsequent adoption of a safety-engineered blood collection set helped Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH), a leading academic medical center, reduce needlestick injuries (NSIs) by nearly 70 percent among its patient care technicians and nursing staff.
In the article, “Successfully Reducing Wingset-related Needlestick Injuries,” author Doris L. Dicristina, RN, BSN, MS, COHN-S/CM, director of employee health and wellness services for RWJUH, reports how her team identified that forward-shielding safety blood collection sets accounted for 30 percent of the institution’s NSIs in 2010 and 43 percent in 2011.
The financial impact of these NSIs on RWJUH ranged from $400-$6,000 per injury, depending on whether the patient was known to carry a bloodborne disease such as hepatitis C, hepatitis B or HIV/AIDS. Using a novel financial model, RWJUH estimated that it would need to generate more than $106,000 in additional revenue to cover the cost of each NSI from a source-negative patient, with injuries from source-positive patients costing even more … more
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