Managing the Risk of Needlestick Injury in U.A.E. Hospitals

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Date
2012-01
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Publisher
British University in Dubai
Abstract
Healthcare sector is a field full of risks; hence, risk management is an important concern in healthcare industry. The motivation of this study is to identify effective practices, tools, and techniques in managing infectious risks in healthcare field, particularly the needlestick injury (NSI) risk. For this purpose, a review on the literature is done for studying risk management in general and risk management in healthcare field in order to collect wide range of knowledge about this topic and to know how to deal with risks when occurring. Current philosophies and practises have been studied and their effectiveness on dealing with risks has been presented as well. The NSI risk has been studied in details and some studies have been showed for this purpose. Interviewees were asked for holding interviews and take part in a qualitative research study relating to infectious risks management, case of needlestick injury. Five hospitals provided data concerning the practises done when an NSI occurs, and the application of the proposed conceptual framework which is the butterfly risk tool for NSI whether it was negative or positive case was also presented. Overall, this study proved that educating the staff about all risks types could occur in the hospital is essential in order to get the knowledge of preparing risk response plans that helps in reducing likelihood occurrence of the risk sources and avoiding risk. It will help also in mitigating the impact of the consequences and in transferring/diversifying risk. The educational and awareness programmes and sessions will act as activities for preventing and monitoring the control of risks sources and will work as controls for mitigating and correcting the risks consequences as well. Another highlighted point in this research was filling incidence reports when an injury occurred. The importance of this point is for reporting the risk immediately after occurring and not to hide this information as it will affect the injured person, as well as could affect other involved people working in the same area. In conclusion, recommendations for risk managers in hospitals have been proposed in order to manage risks in general by applying the proposed conceptual framework.
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Keywords
Healthcare sector, risk management, Risk Management in Healthcare, Infectious Risks, Butterfly Risk Tool, Needlestick Injury (NSI)
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