going to shine a light on 3 of them: unsafe injection practices, unsanitary
anesthesia providers and unseen residual debris on reprocessed instru-
ments. Can we end cross-contamination? Probably not, but you can
shoot for zero healthcare infections.
1. Unsafe injection practices
Bacterial and bloodborne infections from unsafe injection practices
are entirely preventable, but misconceptions about safe injection
practices abound, says Libby Chinnes, RN, BSN, CIC, FAPIC, an infec-
tion prevention and control consultant in Mt. Pleasant, S.C. She says
it's not OK to:
• administer medication in the same syringe to more than one
patient so long as they change the needle between patients or admin-
ister the injection through a length of IV tubing.
• access the same medication vial for more than one patient with a
syringe that has already been used to administer medication to a
patient.
• use a common bag of IV fluid or saline for more than one patient
and to access the bag with a syringe you already used to flush the
catheter of a patient.
• use medications packaged as single-use for more than one
patient.
• keep multi-dose vials in immediate patient care areas, including
operating and procedure rooms, anesthesia and procedure carts, and
patient rooms or bays.
Those are the don'ts. Ms. Chinnes offers these do's for safe injection
practices.
• To access patient medications in an aseptic manner, use a new
sterile needle as well as a new sterile syringe to draw up medications
while preventing contact between the injectable materials and the
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