The study marks the first time the researchers have quantified the national reduction in costs and injuries following the implementation of 2000’s Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act, a law UVA helped champion.
The Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act required employers to provide safer devices (such as safety syringes), review exposure-control plans annually and maintain logs of all injuries by sharp items. It also gave healthcare workers who use the devices a greater role in selecting those devices.
To assess the nationwide effect of the legislation, the UVA researchers reviewed injury data collected from 85 hospitals in 10 states between 1995 and 2005. This work was conducted under the auspices of the International Healthcare Worker Safety Center, Janine Jagger, PhD, MPH, director. The law, the researchers found, reduced accidental healthcare injuries by more than a third following its implementation in 2000. Based on those figures, the researchers have calculated the nationwide reduction in needlestick injuries at more than 100,000 a year and the annual cost savings at $69 million to $415 million.
The findings have been published online by the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology and will appear in a forthcoming print edition. The article was authored by Phillips; Mark R. Conaway, PhD; Ginger Parker, MBA; Jane Perry, MA; and Jagger, all of UVA.
While the needlestick legislation has had a dramatic impact, the authors note that there is still more work to be done to ensure the safety of healthcare workers across the country.