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Following safe injection practices is key to preventing the spread of infection during health care delivery. Unsafe injection practices include: unnecessary injections, reusing needles and syringes, using a single dose medication vial for multiple patients, giving an injection in an environment that is not clean and hygienic, and risking injury due to incorrect sharps disposal.
The associated dangers such as needle-stick injuries put health workers at risk of infection and, in many cases, these injuries are underreported. It is important to make sure health care workers in your facility are trained in sharps injury prevention, as accidents can easily occur if safety practices are not routinely and rigorously followed.
Please note: These materials were launched on 23/06/2020.
Self-paced
Language: English
COVID-19
Course information
The
course is also available in the following languages:
Tetun - Nederlands - македонски
Overview: In this course, you will learn about the causes of unsafe injection practices, how to safely give injections, and how to safely dispose of needles and other sharps. You will also learn what to do when needle-stick injuries occur, how to manage potential exposures, and ways to protect yourself, the staff and patients in your facility, and your community.
Learning objectives: By the end of this course, you should be able to:
- identify common factors that contribute to unsafe injection practices in health care;
- explain the risks associated with unsafe injection practices and infections caused by them;
- apply injection safety best practices in health care;
- describe the 7 steps of a safe injection;
- demonstrate safe handling and disposal of needles and other sharps;
- explain the mechanism of safety-engineered syringes;
- identify the ways in which needle-stick injuries can occur in your facility;
- describe what to do if a needle-stick injury does occur;
- explain exposure management for hepatitis B [HBV], hepatitis C [HCV] and HIV from needle-stick injuries; and
- apply the multimodal strategy to reduce needle-stick injuries in your facility.
Course duration: Approximately 2 hours.
Certificates: A Record of Achievement will be issued to participants who receive at least 70% on the post-test. You have an unlimited number of attempts to meet the threshold. Participants who receive a Record of Achievement can also download an Open Badge for this course. Click here to learn how.
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Certificate Requirements
- Gain a Record of Achievement by earning at least 70% of the maximum number of points from all graded assignments.
Because COVID-19 vaccines are distributed in multi-dose vials, it will be critical that healthcare personnel follow safe infection practices to prevent infections. The One and Only Campaign is a
public health effort to eliminate unsafe medical injections. Check out their resources to help educate clinicians and patients. Over the past few years there has been a lot of media attention surrounding disease outbreaks caused from unsafe injection practices. In response to this, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] and Safe injection Practices Coalition [SIPC] have joined to educate healthcare providers and the public on safe injection practices. There have been 51 outbreaks of hepatitis B and hepatitis C in the U.S. between 1998 and 2009, exposing 75,000 people to the virus and causing the disease in 620 people. These outbreaks occurred in many different healthcare facilities: hospitals, dialysis facilities, outpatient clinics, ambulatory surgery centers, and long term care facilities. Most occurred as a result of unsafe injection practices where healthcare workers did not follow basic infection control practices. What
you can do: Learn more and share:
It is important to remember that needles and syringes are single use devices. The following are other ways you can ensure safe injection practices: