Every day, health care workers are exposed to dangerous and deadly bloodborne pathogens through contaminated needlesticks, sharps, or splash exposures.
It is one of the greatest risks faced by the frontline health care worker.
AUTOMATIC PROTECTION AGAINST NEEDLESTICK INJURIES
Therefore the Apprentice Corporation in association with RSO Steyn Medical Innovations and Intensive Hygiene has developed an amazing safety needle from concept up to a perfectly market ready product
– Reflex-Safe safety needles.
THE NEED FOR NEEDLE SAFETY
The need for safety needles is very well established and lobbying for their use is increasing. However, what is less known is that according to the National Surveillance System for Healthcare Workers (USA), 52% of needle stick injuries with hollow bore needles take place during the procedure.
Current safety needles offer inadequate protection during this time because the safety feature on the device requires activation. A health worker will not activate the safety feature until the procedure is complete and therefore the protection offered by most safety needles is not complete. This is evidenced by the fact that 30% of all percutaneous injuries with a hollow bore needle involved needles WITH a safety device (NASH 2007).
WHY USE REFLEX-SAFE
Passive Safety Feature – The safety feature activates automatically, meaning health workers are protected against injuries that would otherwise occur during the procedure when using a regular needle or a safety needle that requires the health worker to activate the safety feature.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Reflex-Safe has a completely passive safety feature.
The needle has a silicone sleeve attached to a hard tip. The silicone sleeve acts like a spring to “push” the hard tipped blocking chamber forward as the needle is being withdrawn from the patient. This covers the needle tip and greatly reduces the risk of accidental injuries.
The outwardly flared and off-center position of the blocking chamber minimizes the chance for the needle to exit the safety sleeve without deliberate action.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE
Watch the How-To-Use instructional video clip below the see just
how easy-to-use and effective the Reflex-Safe safety needle is.
Not all safety needles are the same!
“Passive protection is a newly emerging elemental engineering control that can eliminate exposure risk throughout the continuum of use — before, during, and after use of a sharp. It should involve no button pressing, no lever pushing, no needle shearing, no post clinical procedural activation, no “self” anything – the technological movement will involve the simple engineering of a smart device that activates itself during the course of normal clinical use…”
– AMBER HOGAN MITCHELL – MPH, DrPH, Senior industrial hygienist at the U.S. Department of Labor OSHA
(specializing in national regulatory enforcement issues), OSHA National Bloodborne Pathogens Coordinator.
