Have You Ever Witnessed a Scalpel Injury?
October 31, 2017By: Adeline Yi, Anzen™ Product Manager
Did you know that since the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act was signed into law in November 2006, sharps injuries in nonsurgical settings dropped by almost a third, while injuries increased by 6.5% in surgical settings?
In a survey of more than 200 nurses, 83% of OR nurses have personally witnessed or experienced a scalpel-related injury, yet only 33% reported that safety scalpels were being used in their facility.
Widespread adoption of safety scalpels is difficult to achieve if facilities are not on board. In our survey of surgeons at the American College of Surgeons’ (ACS) Clinical Congress 2016, 65% of respondents said that their facility does not use a safety scalpel. Yet, 76% of respondents said they would use a safety scalpel if they were offered at their facility.
Similar results were found at the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association’s (ASCA) 2016 annual meeting where 61% of respondents stated that their facilities do not use safety scalpels.
This was further validated at the OR Manager 30th Annual Conference 2017, where 14 out of 30 respondents polled said that their facility does not use safety scalpels, even though 87% of respondents had witnessed a sharps injury occurring.
Feedback thus far is clear: end users are interested in adopting safety scalpels. The industry challenge is to introduce better safety scalpels into their facilities.
As such, it is our mission, with the creation of the Anzen™ Safety Scalpel, to help reduce the number of sharps injuries by educating decision makers on the importance of adopting safety scalpels as well as to provide surgeons with the first safety scalpel encompassing all of the needed safety features without compromising the ease of use and feel they require.
For more information about our Anzen™ Safety Scalpel, click here to contact us or request samples.