Blog

How Sharps Safety Saves You and Your Money

By: Adeline Yi, Anzen™ Product Manager

In our previous posts we have examined the importance of sharps safety in the healthcare industry, the consequences that result from the industry’s slow adoption and the problems that surgery professionals have with current product offerings.

Now, we would like to ask this question – How much does it cost to be “sharps safe” in the OR?

We get it. Safety scalpels seem to be more expensive than other non-safety scalpels on the market. In fact, our survey of 70 medical product distributors showed that “the biggest hurdle to “convincing end users to adopt safety scalpels” is considered cost.”

However, with an estimated 1,000 sharps injuries occurring each day, U.S. hospitals experience an extra $1 billion in unnecessary annual costs. In fact, in a report published by The Surgical Technologist, it was found that operating room scalpel injuries indirectly increase the cost of purchased conventional blades by at least $2 per blade.

Unfortunately, not only does sharps injuries lead to unnecessary costs for the hospitals, it also has devastating effects on the person that sustained the injury. In a study of 643 nurses from Europe and Russia, emotional responses identified following such an injury, included depression, crying spells, tension in the family, relationship issues, panic attacks, excessive anxiety and inability to work.

So, instead of asking “how much does it cost to be sharps safe?”, the question we would like to ask you is – “how much would you save by switching to a safety scalpel?”

If you would like to become our sharps safety champion and lead product evaluations of our new Anzen™ Safety Scalpel at your facility, please click here to contact us and/or request samples.