Safety in Surgery
Resources to reduce risk and improve healthcare worker safety in surgical settings
NEW: Training video on hands-free transfer technique for passing sharp instruments during surgery
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Passing Sharps Safely: The Hands-Free Technique - 512K
Passing Sharps Safely: The Hands-Free Technique - 768K
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Copyright 2008, Bernadette Stringer. Video may not be copied, in full or in part, reproduced by any means, or in any way modified by any party, without written permission of the copyright holder.
"Passing Sharps Safely: The Hands-Free Technique" was written and produced by Bernadette Stringer, RN, PhD, and Ted Haines, MD. We wish to thank Dr. Stringer and Dr. Haines for permission to post the video on this site.
Topics:
- Surgical exposure risk: epidemiology and prevention
- American College of Surgeons: statements on sharps safety in surgery
- Bibliographies on exposure risks in surgical settings
- Hands-free technique for passing sharp surgical instruments
- Interviews with surgical safety specialists
- Interviews with occupationally infected surgeons
- OSHA and CDC resources and recommendations
- Recommendations from surgical professional associations for sharps injury prevention
- Surgical safety products
- Surgical Sharps Safety Checklist
- Other surgical sharps safety resources
Surgical exposure risk: epidemiology and prevention
- Bloodborne pathogen exposure risk among African surgeons (Phillips et al, Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol, 2007)
- CDC: Evaluation of blunt suture needles
- Epidemiology of sharps injuries in surgical settings (multicenter study)
- Needlestick injuries to surgeons in training (Makary et al, NEJM, 2007 - open access)
- Study finds many injuries to surgeons go unreported (New York Times article 6/28/07)
- OSHA/NIOSH Safety and Health Information Bulletin: Use of blunt-tip suture needles to decrease percutaneous injuries to surgical personnel (U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, March 2007)
- Personal protective equipment: goggles
- Scalpel blades: reducing injury risk (EPINet data analysis)
- Suture needle injuries fact sheet
- Suture needle and scalpel blade injuries (EPINet data analysis)
American College of Surgeons: statements on sharps safety in surgery
- Publications on exposure risk and sharps injuries in surgical settings
- International Healthcare Worker Safety Center -- publications on exposure risk in surgical settings
Hands -free technique for passing sharp surgical instruments
- Video:
- Passing Sharps Safely: The Hands-Free Technique - 512K
- Passing Sharps Safely: The Hands-Free Technique - 768K
- Effectiveness of hands-free technique - B. Stringer et al.
Interviews with surgical safety specialists:
- "Sharpless surgery": interview with Johns Hopkins professor and surgeon Martin Markary
- Interview with Mark Davis, M.D., former surgeon and surgical safety specialist
Interviews with infected surgeons:
- Lessons from an HCV-Infected Surgeon (Perry & Jagger, Bull. Am. Coll. Surg.)
- First Do No Harm: An HCV-Infected Surgeon's Difficult Choice
OSHA and CDC resources and recommendations
- CDC: Evaluation of blunt suture needles
- NIOSH Science Blog: Preventing Needlesticks in Surgical Personnel
- OSHA Hospital e-Tool: Surgical Suite Module - recommendations for common occupational safety issues in surgical settings, including bloodborne pathogens
- OSHA/NIOSH-CDC Safety and Health Information Bulletin: Use of blunt-tip suture needles to decrease percutaneous injuries to surgical personnel (U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, March 2007)
Recommendations from surgical professional associations
- American College of Surgeons:
- Association of Surgical Technologists: Recommended Standards of Practice for Sharps Safety and Use of the Neutral Zone
- Association of periOperative Registered Nurses
- AORN Guidance Statement: Sharps Injury Prevention in the Perioperative Setting
- AORN Position Statement on Workplace Safety
- Council on Surgical and PeriOperative Safety: Safe Surgery Principles (#6 deals with prevention of sharps injuries)
Surgical Sharps Safety Checklist
Other surgical sharps safety resources
- Advances Precautions for Today's OR (book by Mark Davis, M.S.)
- EPINet for the OR (sharps injury surveillance tool for surgical settings)
- ORprecautions.com
- Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in Healthcare Settings
- free downloadable Powerpoint presentation with guidance for presenters/trainers
- free downloadable poster: "Sequence for Donning and Removing Personal Protective Equipment"