Resources
for sharps safety and occupational exposure prevention
Below are resources on sharps safety and occupational exposure prevention, including links to tools for conducting exposure surveillance, a list of safety-engineered sharp devices, statistics and benchmarking figures on percutaneous injuries, research articles, and a wealth of other information.
Be sure to look as well at the extensive links to relevant U.S. government resources (OSHA, NIOSH, CDC, etc.), found here.
- Emergency needlestick information
- Advances in Exposure Prevention:
- Bibliography of articles on needlesticks, sharps safety, and occupational exposure to bloodborne pathogens (over 2,500 articles from medical and nursing literature around the world, covering a century of research in the field)
- BOOK: Preventing Occupational Exposures to Bloodborne Pathogens: Articles from Advances in Exposure Prevention, 1994-2003
- Checklist for Sharps Injury Prevention (pdf)
- Cost of needlesticks:
- U.S. Government Accounting Office report:
"Occupational Safety: Selected Cost and Benefit Implications of Needlestick Prevention Devices for Hospitals" (PDF)
- Cost of Needlesticks and Blood Exposures (AEP article in pdf)
- Worksheet: Measuring the Cost of Sharps Injury Prevention (CDC)
- Denominators for Calculating Percutaneous Injury Rates (AEP article in PDF)
- EPINet Resources
Links to EPINet-related information, including data reports and EPINet ordering information.
- Estimate of the Annual Number of Percutaneous Injuries Among Hospital-Based Healthcare Workers in the U.S., 1997-1998 (PDF; 2004 article from Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology; combines data from EPINet and NaSH surveillance networks to derive estimates)
- Estimates of Annual Number of New HIV/HBV/HCV Infections
- Healthcare Worker Blood Exposure Risks: Correcting Some Outdated Statistics (AEP article in PDF)
- Joint Commission: Sentinel Event Alert - Preventing Needlesticks and Sharps Injuries (2001)
- Nursing2004 needle-stick and sharps-safety survey (Perry J, Robinson ES, Jagger J)
- OSHA and legislative links
- OSHA Citations for Failure to Use Safety Devices (AEP article; PDF)
- Safety Device List
List of safety-engineered devices designed to prevent needlesticks/blood and body fluid exposures to healthcare workers; updated regularly.
- Suture needle injuries (information sheet; PDF)
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