Advancing Staff Safety: Assessment of Quality Improvement Interventions in Reducing Needlestick Injuries Among Staff at Nyaho Medical Centre

INTRODUCTION: Needlestick injury, which occurs when the skin is accidentally punctured, is linked to infection transmission of HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C. Because of the associated risks, hospitals are keen to do everything necessary to prevent needlestick injuries to their staff. This is a quality improvement project aimed at reducing needlestick injuries among staff at Nyaho Medical Centre (NMC). METHODS: A facility-based assessment of the incidence of needlestick injury recorded and quality intervention employed was conducted between 2018 and 2021. Quality improvement tools such as the fishbone (cause and effect analysis) and the run chart were used to analyze and evaluate improvements made over time. RESULTS: NMC staff have greatly reduced the incidence of needlestick injuries from 2018 to 2021 (from 11 needlestick injuries in 2018 to 3 recorded needlestick injuries in 2021). CONCLUSION: Using root cause analysis to investigate the possible cause of needlestick injury and use of the run chart to monitor the implemented improvement strategies (interventions) helped reduce the incidence of needlestick injuries among staff and thereby improved staff safety. The introduction of the incident reporting management systems saw an increase in the culture of incident reporting in general. Other incidents, such as medical errors and patient falls, were being reported using the incident reporting system. The inclusion of infection prevention and control training as part of NMC’s onboarding for new employees helped in the knowledge and awareness creation of needlestick injuries and safety measures to prevent injury from needles and sharps. Policy changes and audit with feedback sharing key performance indicators with frontline team members were identified to have had the most effect.