Objective: To reduce the risk of needlestick injuries to laboratory workers.
Design: Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) tools were applied to data collected on the number of blood gas syringes that arrived in the laboratory with needles still attached and to the reasons for these occurrences.
Setting: A clinical chemistry department within a 900-bed tertiary referral university teaching hospital.
Participants: Clinical chemistry laboratory staff and medical staff responsible for sending syringes with needles still attached.
Interventions: Changing to a preheparinized blood gas syringe that included a syringe cap within the packaging.
Results: Fivefold reduction in the number of syringes arriving in the laboratory with needles still attached.
Conclusion: The risk of needlestick injury to laboratory workers can be reduced by provision to clinical staff of preheparinized blood gas syringes that include a syringe cap within the packaging. The techniques to CQI provide powerful tools for the identification, solving, and monitoring of safety-related issues within the healthcare environment.