A new study reveals that nearly 67,000 patients were notified about potential exposure to unsafe injection practices by healthcare personnel between 2012 and 2018.
As the Mayo Clinic Proceedings study notes, these patients were part of 38 notification events. Of these events, 25 involved syringe and/or needle reuse in the context of routine patient care while 11 involved drug tampering by a healthcare provider.
Furthermore, outbreak-associated hepatitis B virus and/or hepatitis C virus infections were documented for 11 of the events, eight involved patient-to-patient transmission and three involved provider-to-patient transmission.
The total number of U.S. patients who have been notified of potential exposures to blood-contaminated medications or injection equipment since 2001 is nearly 200,000. The Mayo Clinic Proceedings study notes, "The total number notified is staggering, considering the anxiety and uncertainty faced by patients while they awaited their test results, as well as other effects and costs borne by patients, healthcare providers, facilities and health departments."
February 2020 marks the 10-year anniversary of the Safe Injection Practices Coalition and its "One & Only Campaign," a public health effort to eliminate unsafe medical injections.
It is the responsibility of healthcare providers to ensure adherence to safe injection practices. Providers should never administer medications from the same syringe to more than one patient, and never enter a vial with a used syringe or needle.
Infection Control Consulting Services (ICCS) consultants regularly witness unsafe injection practices during on-site visits with clients. In a 2018 special report, we shared seven examples of unsafe injection practices identified during a client visit, included "opened multi-dose vials left on anesthesia carts" on our list of the scariest healthcare infections and threats and noted the addition of safe injection practices in the "Guideline for Isolation Precautions: Preventing Transmission of Infectious Agents in Healthcare Settings 2007" in our recent standard precautions special report.