AOHP to Add Sharps Safety Statement to Strategic Plan
The association's executive board will take this action during the 2012 national conference in October.
The Association of Occupational Health Professionals in Healthcare announced that its executive board, through its collaboration with organizations such as AORN and the OSHA Alliance, will incorporate support of a sharps safety consensus statement into its strategic plan when it is updated at the association's 2012 national conference. The event will take place Oct. 3-6 in Las Vegas.
AOHP signed a letter of support for the "Moving the Sharps Safety Agenda Forward in the United States: Consensus Statement and Call to Action" statement in January 2012. Developed by the International Healthcare Worker Safety Center at the University of Virginia's School of Medicine in collaboration with the American Nurses Association, the consensus statement was unveiled March 8, 2012, and supported by 18 health care groups nationwide. According to AOHP, it resulted from research showing that the decline in needlestick injuries following the 2001 Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act had leveled off, with many preventable injuries still occurring. The plan's recommended actions include these:
- improving sharps safety in health care surgical settings
- reducing exposure risk in non-hospital health care environments
- involving health care workers in selection of safety devices
- improving the range and design of available safety devices
- enhancing workers' education and training