which constantly assesses products that promote sharps safety. The
committee looks into trialing new safety blades, hypodermic protec-
tors and blunt suture needles. The goal is for everyone to remain vigi-
lant, so we also encourage staff members who become aware of other
new products to bring them to the committee to see if they're worth
pursuing. If they are, we'll add them to our arsenal in the battle to
reduce sharps injuries.
One of the things we quickly discovered was that there are several
good safety zone products available — silicone mats, magnetic pads
and pans, to name a few. We collected data and feedback from sur-
geons and other members of the surgical team to find out which prod-
ucts they preferred and found they generally did not have a prefer-
ence. Ultimately, we found that acceptance of safety zone products is
driven by an individual team's preference, that's why we offer several
options for teams to consider using during their cases.
The surgical team also discovered they didn't necessarily need a par-
ticular product to ensure sharps were passed through a safety zone.
They instead simply used a toweled-off area on the Mayo stand or even
a pan or basin that was part of a surgical pack. That's important,
because the hands-free-passing concept itself is more important than
how your team achieves it. It's perfectly reasonable for your team to
approach what will be used as the safety zone on a case-by-case basis
based on whatever works best and is appropriate. You can be flexible in
your requirement of what surgical teams use as the neutral zone. The
important thing is that they use one during every case.
Don't forget to assess the safety of your sharps disposal process.
We've recently added 2 larger sharps disposal bins to every OR, and
eliminated the smaller sharps containers from anesthesia carts, because
we felt overfilling the smaller bins was more likely to cause injuries
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