Building a Culture of Sharps Safety Requires More Than Just Tools

Preventing sharps injuries in health care requires safety-engineered devices and a cultural shift, supported by clear policies, transparency, and communication across departments. One expert emphasizes that the responsibility for preventing sharps injuries does not begin and end in the operating room (OR), but instead it extends to sterile processing, pathology, and beyond.

In this Infection Control Today^® (ICT^®) interview with Amanda Heitman, BSN, RN, CNOR, perioperative educational consultant for Periop Anew, and supervisor of education of surgical services at WakeMed in Cary, North Carolina, she explains how to encourage sharps safety responsibility.

Key strategies for improving safety include establishing robust administrative controls, promoting consistent incident reporting, and transparently reviewing injuries to learn from them rather than hiding them. When staff feel safe reporting an injury and see others do the same without fear of blame, it helps normalize the process and build a culture where safety is the expectation, not the exception.

“We have to help write policies for the sharp safety to ensure that adherence is going to happen with their practices because again, if you don't implement the policies, they may not do it,” Heitman told Infection Control Today^®. “We got to encourage the reporting still, and then start investigating those reports, figuring out what happened, what process needs to be reevaluated, to see why the injury occurred, and being transparent about those incident reports, to look at the issues that is so useful and helpful, and learning from those issues rather than hiding them.”

Equally important is reevaluating practices and policies after an injury occurs. Investigating the root cause and adjusting workflows or retraining staff can prevent repeat incidents. This also means involving staff in the evaluation and adoption of safety-engineered devices, empowering them to be champions of safer practices.

Sharps safety must also include better coordination between the OR and sterile processing departments (SPD). If a used scalpel blade is not removed properly before being sent for cleaning, the risk of injury transfers downstream. In fast-paced environments where staff may be relieved midcase, that crucial step is sometimes skipped, which puts SPD personnel at risk. Proper use of blade removal devices at the field level can bridge this safety gap between teams.

Pathology departments also face exposure risks when using similar tools. This is why safety measures must be adopted facility-wide, not only in surgical areas.

Ultimately, building a culture of safety involves listening to staff, sharing accountability, and valuing every contribution. Whether it is implementing better tools or simply reporting an incident, each action helps make health care safer for patients and the people who care for them.