Stephanie Chalupka (Nursing) was an author of “Do Your Procedure Trays Meet Sharps Safety Standards?” which was published in OR Nurse.
In the United States each year, an estimated 380,000 to 800,000 healthcare workers based in hospitals are injured by sharps. In Massachusetts hospitals, more than 3,000 sharps injuries per year are reported to the Massachusetts Sharps Injury Surveillance System. An estimated 58% to 73% of needle-stick injuries are unreported, suggesting that current data on sharps injuries significantly underestimate the true number of injuries. Although sharps injuries have been associated with the transmission of at least 30 bloodborne pathogens, three of them– hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), and HIV– present the greatest concerns.
Chalupka and fellow researchers investigated prepackaged procedure trays used in operating rooms at 10 Massachusetts hospitals as potential factors in sharps injury prevention. Many hospitals were found to routinely use prepackaged procedure trays containing sharp devices that conflict with mandates of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Bloodborne Pathogens (BBP)Standard.
Professor Chalupka’s co-authors were Catherine Galligan of the Sustainable Hospitals Program, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Angela Laramie, an epidemiologist for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Sharps Injury Surveillance and Prevention Project of the Occupational Health Surveillance Program at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and Letitia Davis, Director of the Occupational Health Surveillance Program at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. The research was funded by Massachusetts Department of Public Health.