Teleconference planned on preventing needlesticks

The ANA has joined with the University of Vermont to offer a teleconference on preventing needlesticks -- "Preventing Needlestick Injuries: The Time is Now! Safe Needles Save Lives" -- on May 12, 1:30-3:30 p.m. EST, during National Nurses Week. The teleconference is designed to educate nurses and others in the health care industry about the problem of needlestick injuries.

In addition, ANA and the Training for the Development of Innovative Control Technologies (TDICT) project will present six one-day workshops. The TDICT Project, part of the Trauma Foundation at San Francisco General Hospital, was founded in 1990 to bring together health care workers, product designers and industrial hygienists to prevent exposure to blood through better design and evaluation of medical devices and equipment. The workshops will provide an opportunity to evaluate the newest needlestick devices designed to prevent injuries.

Teleconference and workshop topics will include the epidemiology of injuries and strategies for prevention, an update of federal government research and education, regulatory efforts designed to assist in the implementation of effective exposure control programs and criteria for evaluation and selection of safer needlestick devices. The teleconference also will feature a case study of The Greensville Hospital System(GHS) in South Carolina. In this case study, key leaders in creating and implementing the needlestick prevention program at Greensville will share experiences, lessons learned and outcomes.

The teleconference will feature national experts, including Campaign for Health Care Worker Safety founder Lynda Arnold, RN; Massachusetts Nurses Association President Karen Daley, MPH, RN; TDICT Director June M. Fisher, MD; ANA President Mary E. Foley, MS, RN; International Healthcare Worker Safety Center Director Janine Jagger, PhD, MPH; Premier Safety Institute Director Gina Pugliese, MS, RN; National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Director Linda Rosenstock, MD, MPH; occupational health nurse practitioner Katherine Twitchell, MS, RN, CS; and ANA Occupational Safety and Health Specialist Susan Wilburn, MPH, RN. Fisher and Wilburn will conduct the workshops.

The teleconference will offer 2.4 contact hours, and the workshops will offer 7.8 contact hours. For more information about these offerings, contact UVM at (800) 639-3188 or www.uvm.edu/~dceweb/profprog; or go to ANA's web pages, http://nursingworld.org/ce/ and http://www.needlestick.org/.