Sharps Injuries Flashcards
What is a sharps injury?
Needles or sharp objects become contaminated with blood and bodily fluids that pierce/break the skin of the operator.
What is a significant occupational exposure?
Sharps injury occurs when the source patient is known to be infected with a BBV.
Also could be if you didn’t know at the time that they had a BBV but it was later detected during blood testing.
What common injuries may cause a sharps injury?
Needle
Adjusting posts or CoCr dentures out of the mouth
Adjusting a SSC.
Burs or ultrasonic tips left in handpieces
Slipping luxators
Unsheathed needles left on tray
Oral surgery blade on tray
Not making suture needle safe after use
What are the chances of contracting HBV, HCV and HIV after a percutaneous injury with a contaminated sharp?
HBV- 1 in 3
HCV- 1 in 30
HIV- 1 in 300
What can you do to prevent a sharps injury?
Follow SICPs for every patient
- hand hygiene after patient contact.
- PPE
- Safe disposal of waste
Minimal manipulation of sharp instruments and devices
Appropriate disposal or sharps
Safety devices/safer sharps
Instruments rather than fingers for suturing
Blunt tip suture needles
What does the Health and Safety regulations 2013 say about the use of sharps?
Avoid the use of sharps unless absolutely necessary
Use safer sharps where possible
Never resheath sharps after use.
Written instructions for employees and clearly marked and secure containers for disposal of sharps
Secure containers located close to areas where medical sharps are used at work.
If you suspect you have a sharps injury, what do you do?
Stop what you’re doing
Inform the patient that the injury has occurred
Make the sharp safe
Encourage the site to bleed, wash the injured area with soap and water, dress with waterproof dressing.
Notify supervising clinician
Risk assessment carried out by appropriate person
Contact occupational health- you go get bloods done there
Consent patient for bloods and they have them done in GDH.
Datix.
AWARE!!!!
What information is required for a Datix?
Student details as the person with the injury.
If patient is injured then they go down as the person injured and student is the witness.
Details of the injury.
What happens to the risk assessment paperwork after it has been carried out?
Destroyed after occupational health has been called- do not put it in the patient notes.
Strictly confidential.
Who is responsible for the disposal of sharps?
Operator- you.
Who is responsible for carrying out the risk assessment after a sharps injury?
Not the person who received the injury.
Supervising clinician, clinician, DN team leader, named nurse.
What do you do if a patient refuses to have their bloods taken?
Follow same protocol- still contact occupational health with the risk assessment and get your bloods done.
Patient doesn’t need to disclose that they have a BBV.
When should the primary closure mechanism be used on a sharps box?
When not in use.
What different types of sharps boxes exist?
Red lid- teeth with amalgam
Blue lid- LA cartridges that aren’t empty
Orange lid- needles with no medicine, scalpel, matrix band, burs, disposable scissors.
What is an exposure prone procedure?
Invasive procedures where there is a risk that injury to the worker may result in the exposure of the patient’s open tissues to the blood of the worker.
