OSHA Compliance Issues A New Approach to Needlestick Injuries Among Health Care Workers

Reducing needlestick injuries has be-come an important topic of discussion for health care workers, politicians, employ-ers, researchers, and government agen-cies. Demand for action has evoked strong responses from multiple players, and subsequently, greater public aware-ness. Speci ® cally, the safety of health care workers has been emphasized; as a preventable occupational health hazard, needlestick injuries have been declared unacceptable. This article describes the scope of needlestick injuries among health care workers in the United States, Occupational Safety and Health Admin-istration (OSHA) regulations applicable to these injuries, and strategies for pre-vention. Needlestick Injuries Needlestick injuries among health care workers are a recognized occupa-tional health hazard. Conservative es-timates project 800,000 exposures oc-curring in the United States every year. There are approximately 4 million health care workers in the United States em-ployed in a variety of settings includ-ing hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, home health agencies, and emergency response teams. While research about needlestick injuries has focused primar-ily on the hospital setting, health care workers in all types of settings are at risk for needlestick injuries.(1 ¡ 4) Physicians, nurses, phlebotomists, medical students, housekeepers, and laundry personnel are unnecessarily exposed, in their work-place, to deadly infectious agents such as the human immunode ® ciency virus (HIV), Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C. A variety of interventions to reduce needle-stick injuries, including legislative and enforcement strategies, have addressed needlestick incidents, preventable occu-pational health hazards