Bloodborne Pathogens Manual

17 Bloodborne Pathogens Manual with mechanical devices whenever possible • dispose of all sharps in appropriate sharps containers • avoid the use of sharps or breakable materials and use safer sharps devices whenever possible Required Departmental Sharps Safety Program Each department must implement a Sharps Safety Program to evaluate the use of alternative devices for preventing sharps injuries to personnel working with human blood or other PIMs. Refer to Appendix II for useful references. To implement a departmental Sharps Safety Program: • Review available sharps injury data for the department, and answer the following questions. ¤¤ What personnel were involved? ¤¤ What sharps devices were being used? ¤¤ What were the circumstances of the sharps injuries? ¤¤ How frequent are sharps injuries? If no sharps injuries have occurred, think about where they might happen. • Determine what alternative safer sharps devices exist to replace the devices currently used. More than a thousand devices designed to prevent sharps injuries are available. Examples to look for are: ¤¤ retracting finger stick lancets ¤¤ breakage resistant plastic specimen/vacuum tubes ¤¤ plastic capillary tubes ¤¤ safety syringes with a cylindrical sheath to shield needles when blood is injected into tubes ¤¤ self-blunting or shielding needles for vacuum tube phlebotomy sets See Appendix II for resources to help identify available safer sharps devices. • Evaluate the effectiveness of different available safer sharps devices for each individual workplace setting in the department. • Non-managerial personnel who will actually be using the devices must be included in the selection of safer sharps devices. This will improve the quality of the selection process and improve personnel acceptance of the newer devices.