Assessing the effect of long-term availability of engineering controls on needlestick injuries among health care workers: A 3-year preimplementation and postimplementation comparison

Health care workers are continually exposed to a number of potentially dangerous bloodborne pathogens in the workplace. Needlesticks have long been identified as being capable of transmitting more than 20 different pathogens, including HIV and hepatitis B and C. In November 1999, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued a revised directive to ensure uniform inspection procedures to better enforce the Bloodborne Pathogen Standard, an update of the previous directive on inspection uniformity contained within it. This standard was signed into law Nov 6, 2000, and became effective April 18, 2001. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has also created a Web site (http://www.osha-slc.gov/needlesticks/index.html) with the latest information on needlestick injuries, including current research, legislation, and news releases. An 800-plus bed hospital serving a major metropolitan population in Texas implemented hospital-wide safety syringes and needleless-intravenous systems in all of its departments except in cases in which the use of traditional needled devices are unavoidable. This transition occurred in 1997 during a 6-month period. Accident reports of sharps injuries from the hospital’s Occupational Health Clinic were used to calculate the incidence rate 3 years before and 3 years after implementation to compare the effectiveness of these safety measures. The intent of the analysis was to evaluate sharps injuries occurring to all health care and ancillary workers to determine whether the engineering controls were effective in reducing needlestick injuries.