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Survey: Virtually All Equip Workers with PPE Designed to Prevent Sharps Injuries

CHICAGO — Virtually everyone responding to this month’s Wire survey equips their laundry/linen workers to prevent injuries from sharps, but none of them use equipment or tools to detect sharps in bags of soiled linen or garments before laundry workers handle them.
Only 3.3% of respondents say they don’t provide personal protective equipment such as gloves, gowns, etc., to their workers.
Every laundry represented in the survey conducts worker training in how to avoid sharps injuries and report them if they occur, as well as utilizes special containers designed to store sharps safely for disposal.
Twenty percent of respondents say their laundry/linen operations have experienced a sharps-related injury within the last two years. Among those, almost all were caused by needlesticks. None of the employees involved tested positive for HIV.
“Laundry loses time and productivity, as well as our concern for our employees’ well-being,” says one respondent. “We keep track of where all sharps are received from and send monthly reports with pictures to our linen customers. Customers are to do internal investigations in an effort to eliminate this problem.”
When asked to rate their operation’s efforts to protect workers from sharps injuries, 40% said "Excellent," 50% said “Above average” and 10% said “Average.” No one who responded considered their efforts to be “Below average” or “Poor.”
Subscribers to American Laundry News’ Wire e-mails — now distributed weekly — are invited to participate in an industry survey each month. The survey is conducted online via a partner website. Each survey is developed so it can be completed in 10 minutes or less. Readers are encouraged to participate, as a greater number of responses will help to better define operator opinions and industry trends.
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Wire ALN 2008 02 A
Wire ALN 2008 02 B

Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Matt Poe at [email protected].