Sharpsmart: Reduction in Sharps Injuries, Costs, and CO2 Emissions
Authors: Dailly, S and Davis-Blues, K
Publication: You Can Have it All: Prevent Sharps Injuries, Save Money, and Reduce CO2!
Summary:
What is the article?
This article explores the positive impacts that the Sharpsmart sharps container system had on Winchester & Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust, a 400 bed small acute trust, including a reduction in sharps injuries, a reduction in their carbon footprint, and cost and time savings for staff.
What did we learn?
The 400 bed small acute trust experienced the following from utilising Sharpsmart sharps containers:
- Zero needlestick injuries in 12 months after introducing the Sharpsmart system
- An 18% reduction in needlestick injuries
- An increase in staff satisfaction with sharps container use
- Improvement in the trust’s understanding of segregation
- A 33% reduction in sharps waste
- Overall reduction of 68.6 tons of CO2 emissions in year one
To put this in perspective: if a car produces 127 g/km of CO2 it would have to travel around the world over 13.6 times to produce the same amount of CO2 as the trust has saved in one year!
Authors