Real Stories

At Broward Health, formerly North Broward Hospital District (8000 employees, 5 hospitals, community health, etc.), we have had prevention of contaminated needlesticks as an active performance improvement initiative for over 10 years. We obtain, trial and implement all the safety devices new to market, do education, measure, and publish broadly the number and causes.

I have been a Registered Nurse since 2002, Magna Cum Laude Graduate from FIU, N. Miami Beach. I started my career in Emergency Medicine and specialized in Open Heart Recovery. I have had the pleasure to work in various specialty areas both inpatient and outpatient which has allowed me to appreciate the various challenges in Needlestick Injury Safety as it pertains to various nursing specialty areas from student nurse to expert nurse.

Safety syringes are really important because I’ve had a clinician in an emergency room situation who managed to get a used needle up out of the safety device and stick her hand with an HIV-positive patient. She was a pregnant nurse. It was a nightmare. We had OSHA in our building for nine months. I've seen people hurt themselves, come on, you know, you can't be a nurse for 40 years without sticking yourself. Give 100 people their flu shots and eventually you're going to stick your thumb.

We see a fair amount of needlesticks. I have hepatitis C because of a needlestick. I was in a rehabilitation center and at the time they weren't following regulation so the needle box wasn’t at the right height. So, I was in an isolation room and we had this patient for, I'd say, about 30 to 40 days, and she had numerous issues. The needle box was too full but I couldn't tell that because it was up to high. There was a day when I put the needle in the box and it was so full because housekeeping didn't come into isolation to empty boxes.