Global Needlestick Prevention Group Honors Award Recipients as It Marks the 3rd Annual International Sharps Injury Prevention Awareness Month.

SOUTH JORDAN, Utah -- ISIPS, the first international needlestick prevention group, announced that five recipients are being honored for reducing sharps injuries with a Sharps Injury Prevention Award with an additional two recipients receiving honorable mention awards. These awards are part of the International Sharps Injury Prevention Awareness Month activities being commemorated in December, 2004 starting with World AIDS Day, December 1st.

A number of very worthy individuals were nominated for the 2004 International Sharps Injury Prevention Awards. Nominations were reviewed by a nominating committee, comprised of representatives from Managing Infection Control, Tyco Kendall Healthcare, Becton Dickinson, B. Braun, Smiths Medical, Retractable Technologies, and the International Sharps Injury Prevention Society (ISIPS). We are grateful to these organizations for sponsoring the award this year.

We thank those individuals that have made a difference in getting the message of sharps injury prevention to healthcare workers and employers around the globe. We owe a debt of gratitude to those that have provided a healthier climate for healthcare workers and others.

The 2004 Sharps Injury Prevention Awards have been given to honor five individuals who have demonstrated creative, consistent contributions to the field of sharps injury prevention. The 2004 International Sharps Injury Prevention Award recipients are: Lieutenant Commander Paul Andre, Diane Baranowsky, Eileen Johnson, Dr. Burton Kunik, and Sally Peerbolt. In addition, two honorable mention awards have been awarded to Pam Gill and Joanne Schwalm

Detailed Information

Paul Andre, Sharps Injury Prevention Award Winner

Lieutenant Commander Paul Andre leads a clinical team at the Naval Hospital Great Lakes, Great Lakes, Ill. The team cares for more than 55,000 patients annually, providing more than 350,000 immunizations and injections annually. Over the course of the last year, Lieutenant Commander Andre led a committed team of professionals--including Mary Baily, RN, and Petty Officers Brian Perry and Russell Degidio--who have all contributed to the effort of converting the entire immunization program to needle-free injections. From June 2003 to December 2003, the staff at the USS Red Rover administered approximately 280,000 needle-free injections. Sharps injuries have been nearly eliminated; sharps waste has been reduced by 80%. The innovative approach has elevated the standard of care for patients (all of whom are U.S. Navy new recruits), and has attracted the attention of senior military healthcare managers. The new pace set by this aggressive team has inspired a large volume of other military healthcare facilities to emulate this global approach to eliminating sharps injury exposures.

Diane Baronwsky, Sharps Injury Prevention Award Winner

Diane Baronwsky, RN, BSN, MS, CIC, a Nurse Epidemiologist at Stamford Hospital, Stamford, Connecticut, is a champion in the safe needle device field. She serves as the chair of the hospital's Safe Needle Device Task Force, which has been successful in converting all sharps used within the hospital to safety devices. Ms. Baronowsky has explored safety devices for all areas of the hospital, including specialty areas. Thanks to Diane, many people have been spared the horror of a needlestick. According to one of her co-workers, "In this day and age where fear exists in terms of contracting infectious diseases through blood, Diane has eased the fears of many. She should be commended for all of her efforts. She is the best!"

Eileen Johnson, Sharps Injury Prevention Award Winner

As the Employee Health Nurse at North Oaks Health System in Hammond, La., Eileen Johnson has been responsible for and committed to education and training of employees. Her duties have included vigorous new product trials, complete with consistent and accurate reporting of the results--all in a constant effort to reduce sharps injuries. The role of Employee Health Nurse is a rigorous one and one in which Ms. Johnson must interact with personnel from a host of hospital departments. Ms. Johnson is obligated to teach orientation to all new employees, assuring they are educated to the best means in which to avoid injuries and prevent the spread of infection. Throughout her day, she meets with all employee groups, keeping them on their toes and in stride with hospital protocol for safety--something she holds near and dear to her heart.

Burton Kunik, Sharps Injury Prevention Award Winner

Burton Kunik is President and CEO of Sharps Compliance Inc., a company he founded in 1994 after serving 20 years in the dental profession as an endodontist. The company has grown to become a leader in designing cost-effective, regulatory compliant systems for medical waste and infusion therapy equipment management. The company's premier product is known as Sharps Disposal By Mail Systems(TM), a mail-back sharps container system that services alternate site healthcare, hospitality and other industrial markets. The goals of the company are to simplify medical waste management, reduce costs, and to ensure compliance with state and federal regulations.

Dr. Kunik is also a founding member of the Coalition for Safe Community Needle Disposal, a collaboration of business, community groups and non-profit organizations that promote public awareness and solutions for safe disposal of sharps in the community. As a root canal specialist in his previous career, Dr. Kunik admits he has endured many needlesticks. That alone would be enough for most people to jump on the sharps safety bandwagon, but for this advocate of sharps safety, the main focus is on safe disposal of medical waste. "We are filling a huge need in the marketplace, one that has never been serviced," says Dr. Kunik, who explains that smaller healthcare facilities were overlooked in the medical waste disposal schematic before his company evolved. "Now, people with small quantities of medical waste--such as homecare, hotels, cruise lines or factories--they have an option."

Sally Peerbolt, Sharps Injury Prevention Award Winner

Since 1990, Sally Peerbolt, RN, COHN, COHC, has been the Employee Health Nurse at Riverside County Regional Medical Center, Moreno Valley, Calif. Her employment with the County of Riverside healthcare system stretches a quarter of a century, though, having started as a nursing assistant in 1979, working her way through her nursing degree, serving in the ER, as well as working as a Mobile Intensive Care Nurse. Winning an award was a nice diversion for Ms. Peerbolt, since she has championed the cause for so long, and especially because much of her vision of creating a safer healthcare environment was not met with great enthusiasm--at least not at the onset.

The biggest reason for promoting sharps safety, says Peerbolt, is protecting her employees from injury. "Part of my job has been to handle needlesticks when employees get stuck. Over the years I'd seen too many employees exposed to hepatitis and HIV. I did not want to do that anymore: I did not want to tell them they had been exposed to these diseases."

Pam Gill, Honorable Mention Winner

Pam Gill, RN, BSN, has been extremely proactive in the implementation of safety devices at her facility. Ms. Gill is the HIV/HBV Prevention Nurse at Iredell Memorial Hospital in Statesville, N.C. Ms. Gill began her career at Iredell in 1985 as an Intensive Care nurse. While sharps safety is a top priority, Ms. Gill's goals are much broader and farther reaching. "We have a total exposure prevention program," said Ms. Gill. "Sharps fit in to the highest care category, but healthcare workers have died through cuts in the skin also. So, when I'm talking to staff, I have to remind them that PPE is part of the total exposure prevention program. Ours is not just a sharps safety program. We have a total exposure prevention program."

Joanne Schwalm, Honorable Mention Winner

Joanne Schwalm, RN, BS, CIC, has been in Infection Control since 1978, but her greatest challenge has been navigating sharps safety devices successfully into the hands of healthcare professionals. "I have been proactive in getting safety devices into the hospital since OSHA changed the Bloodborne Pathogen Standard," she says. "We actually began using a safety device for IV piggybacks in 1989. And since we have gone to an IV needleless system, we have not had one exposure." Ms. Schwalm has worked diligently to make the hospital needleless.

For information about the Sharps Injury Prevention Award or ISIPS, call 801-280-8797, email [e-mail], or access www.isips.org.