Karen Daley: A needlestick changed ANA president’s life

7/23/2010

Karen Daley, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN, recently elected president of the American Nurses Association, knows firsthand the devastating consequences of a sharps injury. In July 1998, while disposing of a needle after drawing blood from a patient in the ED, she was stuck by a needle protruding from the sharps box and contracted hepatitis C and HIV. A year later, she was forced to give up direct-care nursing. “Because it was such a difficult course, particularly in the first few years, I didn’t know initially if I’d survive it,” Daley told www.Nurse.com about her diagnosis. She soon became an advocate for needlestick safety and prevention. Daley, a past president of the Massachusetts Association of Registered Nurses and the Massachusetts Center for Nursing, used resources and support of the state association to get a needlestick safety and prevention bill passed in Massachusetts. She later galvanized ANA and state nursing organizations to advocate for needlestick prevention legislation on a national level. Through their efforts, the Federal Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act was passed November 6, 2000, www.Nurse.com reported. Separately, a study published in the April Journal of the American College of Surgeons, found that many surgical teams and hospitals are not using devices and procedures proven to reduce the risk of accidental needlesticks in the OR, such as blunt-tip suture needles and sheath scalpels. The study found that sharps injuries among surgeons, residents, and nurses have increased by 6.5% since the introduction of the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act in 2000. According to HcPro’s Hospital Safety Center, more than 384,000 healthcare workers in the United States suffer needlestick injuries each year. OSHA’s Bloodborne Pathogens standard requires the use of devices to reduce needlestick injuries. However, OSHA does qualify its safe needle mandates by giving leeway to surgeons in its guidance documents, HcPro added. For instance, surgeons don’t have to use a safer device if it “compromises either patient safety or medical integrity,” OSHA indicated in its 2007 bulletin. But the recent study showing the risk to OR personnel may change some minds, says the lead author, Dr. Ramon Berguer, chief of surgery at Contra Costa Regional Medical Center in Martinez, CA. “I think what’s been missing in the discussion is the fact that the needlestick risk is a shared risk among the team,” Berguer says. A decision made by a surgeon to use a sharp needle for example, puts the entire surgical team at risk. “I think that changes the tone of the discussion because now it becomes an employee safety issue,” he told Hospital Safety Center.