Hospitals, Residents Targeted in Needlestick Safety Campaign; NAPPSI Supports Residents at New York City Hospital.

News Editors/Health/Medical Writers

CARLSBAD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 11, 2003

A campaign to protect medical residents and interns from accidental suture needlesticks has been launched by the National Alliance for the Primary Prevention of Sharps Injuries (NAPPSI).

The campaign targets teaching hospitals, where medical interns and residents face the unnecessary risk of deadly infections from accidental needlesticks, which occur while they are performing procedures that use suture needles.

NAPPSI has also issued a statement of support for residents at New York's Montefiore Medical Center, after OSHA fined the medical center for needlestick safety violations.

"It is a travesty that teaching hospitals are recklessly exposing the nation's young doctors to potentially fatal sharps injuries related to suture needles," said Steve Bierman, M.D., NAPPSI's president and a member of the clinical teaching staff at UC San Diego School of Medicine. "Many procedures that once required suture needles can now be effectively performed without suture needles. Yet hospitals have been dragging their feet about adopting these and other new safety measures."

Suture needlesticks are the most common sharps injury experienced by medical interns and residents, according to the International Healthcare Worker Safety Center, at the University of Virginia. Healthcare workers suffer more than 590,000 sharps injuries each year, exposing them to potentially fatal conditions such as Hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS. Hundreds of American healthcare workers annually contract hepatitis as a result of sharps injuries, and there are dozens of documented cases of HIV from such injuries.

NAPPSI's campaign is known as PAIRSS, which stands for Protecting America's Interns and Residents from Suture-needle Sticks. The campaign has been endorsed by the American Medical Students Association and the National Association of Residents and Interns.

"As someone who has personally experienced an accidental needlestick, I know how traumatic these injuries can be," said Lauren Oshman, M.D., M.P.H., national president of the American Medical Student Association. "Needlesticks related to suturing are all too common among interns and residents. It's imperative that teaching hospitals adopt primary prevention and other measures to reduce these potentially deadly injuries to America's young doctors."

Nearly 12 percent of medical students in a 1999 study had sustained needlestick injuries or mucosal exposures to blood. The study of more than 1,000 students at UC San Francisco School of Medicine found that of students who had sustained a needlestick, 43 percent of those injuries were caused by suture needles. The study by Emilie Osborn, M.D., and colleagues was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

"It is timely for all teaching hospitals to set the standards for prevention of errors in medicine," said Dr. Osborn. "New devices, and most importantly, teaching students how to use them, are essential to preventing these unfortunate accidents."

Primary prevention lowers the toll of needlesticks related to suturing and many other medical procedures by reducing or even eliminating the need to use dangerous medical sharps.

For example, NAPPSI estimates that suture securement of catheters accounts for more than 60,000 accidental needlesticks in the U.S. each year, based on published research. Many of these 60,000 suture-needlestick injuries are suffered by interns and residents. Surgical glues -- another example of primary prevention -- eliminate suture needlesticks when used to close wounds that have traditionally been closed by suturing.

"Sutureless and tapeless securement devices together could eliminate more than 90 million needles from the hazard stream every year," Dr. Bierman said. "Surgical glues and other primary prevention technologies could eliminate millions more needles."

To further reduce exposure to suture needlesticks, NAPPSI also advocates elimination of straight (Keith) suture needles and the use of safety surgical instruments that provide secondary prevention.

NAPPSI is a non-profit organization dedicated to minimizing sharps injuries in the healthcare workplace. While its new campaign focuses on interns and residents, the organization also supports needlestick-safety measures aimed at protecting nurses and janitorial staff.

New York Hospital Cited

In a related development, NAPPSI has issued a statement of support for a needlestick-safety campaign launched by medical residents at Montefiore Medical Center, a prominent New York City hospital.

The residents recently notified the American Hospital Association (AHA) of their intent to file "institution-by-institution" complaints with safety regulators unless AHA writes its members regarding needlestick safety. The residents and their organizational allies want AHA to alert its members to needlestick safety citations and fines recently assessed against Montefiore as a way of facilitating hospitals' compliance with OSHA safety standards.

OSHA cited the medical center for 46 instances of unsafe practices that improperly exposed interns, residents and other healthcare workers to sharps injuries. The medical center is associated with the prestigious Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

The citations and fines assessed by OSHA on September 30 came in response to a needlestick-safety complaint filed by more than 20 of the medical residents at the medical center.

The American Medical Students Association and the Health Research Group of Public Citizen joined Montefiore medical residents in demanding that AHA write its members about needlestick-safety issues.

One of the key reasons OSHA cited the medical center: the failure to use sutureless securement devices.

In a related action, OSHA has declared that suture needles used for catheter securement constitute a safety hazard. The agency now requires healthcare employers to consider sutureless securement devices and to adopt them if they are found to be appropriate and feasible (www.osha.gov/SLTC/bloodbornepathogens/index.html, under "New Interpretation Letters").

"The needlestick hazards identified at Montefiore exist at hundreds of other teaching hospitals around the country," said Dr. Bierman. "America's interns and residents will continue to face potentially fatal injuries until hospitals comply with OSHA regulations, by adopting sutureless technologies and other primary prevention devices such as noninvasive monitoring devices and needleless access valves. It's imperative that hospitals and accrediting organizations act now to protect our young doctors and other healthcare workers, so they don't have to put their own lives on the line to save the lives of their patients."

NAPPSI has created the most current and comprehensive list of needlestick-safety devices, available at www.NAPPSI.org/safety.shtml. The organization's Clinician Advisory has also been widely disseminated by governmental and clinician organizations. NAPPSI utilizes communications such as a monthly e-mail newsletter and a national speaker's bureau to inform decisionmakers, clinicians and the media about the value of primary prevention. NAPPSI's membership encompasses many clinical associations concerned with needlestick safety, more than 20 medical device manufacturers and more than 3,000 individual healthcare professionals.

For NAPPSI membership and other information, call 858-350-8623, email [e-mail] or access www.NAPPSI.org.