Safety Engineered Devices : Use and Activation in Six Western US Hospitals
What is the article?
This article asks, “Are we using Safety Engineered Devices (SEDs) frequently enough”, in addition to, “Are we using the safest, clinically-acceptable SED available?” The study examines the contents inside of Daniels Sharpsmart reusable sharps containers to discern the practices of activating SEDs in five California hospitals and one Idaho hospital.
Design and Methods
The contents of Daniels’ Sharpsmart containers were safely decanted. Then the material was sorted into one of four categories to help examine activation rate:
- Hollow-bore SED (activatable and non-activatable)
- Hollow-bore Non-SED
- Solid sharps and solid SED
- Non-sharp wastes
What did we learn?
Once the 115 gallons of contents had been sorted – this gave insight into what percentage of SEDs were activated properly or not. Although 72% of the contents were activatable SED, about 4% of that total were only partially-activated or had been tampered with
While this is an improvement when compared to an SED Florida Audit in 2013, we need to aim for 100% SED activation rate and zero SED tampering.
“A safe sharps containment system remains an essential part of Sharps Injury prevention”
Author
Let's Talk!
Your time is valuable, and we don’t want to play hard to get. You can either phone us directly on the details listed on our contact page, or feel free to fill out this short form and one of our team members will get back to you as quickly as possible.