President Clinton signed the Needle...

President Clinton signed the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act--HR 5178 and SR 3067--into law Nov 6 2000 according to a Nov 6 2000 pres release from the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal foments The bill requires the use of safer devices to defend health care workers from sharps injuries. It also requires that employer solicit input from nonmanagerial employee who are responsible for direct patient care and potentially are expos to sharps injuries, about the identification, evaluation, and selection of effective engineering and work-practice controls

The bill also requires employer to maintain a sharps injury log that would contain, at a minimum,

* the sign and brand of device involved in the incident,

* the department or work area where the incident occurr and

* an explanation of by what means the incident occurred.

The information must be recorded and maintained in a manner that shelters employee confidentiality. The log will be of use to as an important source of data for researchers to determine the effectiveness and safety of devices generally on the market and those that may be make knowned in the future.

More information about this legislation is available at http://www.ssmonline.org.

Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act Signed into Law (pres release, Washington, DC: Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal succors Nov 6, 2000) 1. Available from http://congress.nw.dc.us/cgi-bin/alertpr. pl?dir=awhonn &alert=138. Accessed 7 Nov 2000

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