Unreported needlesticks why

Healthcare providers have a tendency to be warm and compassionate and also altruistic. Sometimes the Let's Get Started: What state are you working in? Share This. Nurses Should be Aware of the Dangers and Protocols With only half of nurses reporting needlestick injuries, it seems the issue may not be as simple as it seems.

Nurses who experience NSIs may not wish to document their incident out of the lack of concern for any potential health risks. If they experienced an NSI in the past that did not result in any harm done, there might be the assumption that reporting is unnecessary.

However, full reporting for every incident is vital to a comprehensive understanding of the issue. Increased reporting may help employers to grasp the underlying issues surrounding NSIs and implement protocols to address these concerns. As the pace of the medical world increases, many nurses are already overwhelmed by their current responsibilities. An NSI incident itself is enough to worry about without having to deal with the aftermath of reporting the situation.

When weighing options, it seems more nurses prefer to keep quiet than speak up and deal with the repercussions of a defective reporting system. Currently the reporting system is extremely time consuming, and the current medical coding system in place in the United States does not allow for specific cataloging of a needlestick injury. Furthermore studies have shown that individuals would be more likely to report needlesticks if healthcare facilities used more effective reporting systems like internal hotlines or response teams.

Unfortunately, often the failure to report needlestick injuries is due to an unwritten culture of silence in many medical communities surrounding these events. It is commonly believed that needlesticks are just part of the job description and reporting them may cause your superiors and peers to think less of you. By not reporting needlestick injuries in the appropriate fashion, healthcare professionals are downplaying the seriousness of the issue at hand.

Yet, with so many reasons not to stop and file a report, it would appear that the only solution to the problem is to prevent the possibility of exposure all together. Learn more. November 25, -Medical students are commonly stuck by needles — putting them at risk of contracting potentially dangerous blood-borne diseases — and many of them fail to report the injuries to hospital authorities, according to a Johns Hopkins study published in the December issue of the journal Academic Medicine.

Researchers surveyed surgery residents at 17 medical centers and, of respondents, or 59 percent said they had sustained a needlestick injury as a medical student.

Many said they were stuck more than once. Of the surgeons-in-training whose most recent needlestick occurred in medical school, nearly half of them did not report their injury to an employee health office, thereby avoiding an evaluation as to whether they needed treatment to prevent HIV or hepatitis C.

It is estimated that , to , needlesticks and other similar injuries are reported annually among U. Makary, M. Most trainees are still forced to learn to sew and stitch on patients, which puts both providers and patients at risk. Makary says medical schools should take advantage of advances in simulation technology and do less training on actual human beings until they are more skilled. The authors of the study believe that needlesticks go unreported due to cumbersome reporting procedures, fears about poor clinical evaluations by their by their superiors, or embarrassment.

The survey did find, however, that medical students were very likely 92 percent to report the needlestick if the patient was at high risk for having a virus like HIV or hepatitis, compared with 47 percent of injuries involving low-risk patients. Still, prompt reporting of all needlestick injuries is critical to ensuring proper medical prophylaxis, counseling and legal precautions, Makary says.