StickSafe is an award-winning medical innovation that will significantly reduce the incidence of needlestick injuries, protecting healthcare workers from potentially life-threatening diseases. As well as reducing the associated costs of treating these injuries, it will simultaneously reduce the cost of sharps waste in hospitals.
Needlestick injuries are accidental skin puncture wounds caused by needles and other medical sharps, after they have already been used to treat patients. Such injuries are a daily risk to healthcare workers, occuring in the course of performing routine and frequent procedures using needles. Needlesticks carry the risk of infection of many potentially lethal diseases including HIV and Hepatitis, which can require a lengthy and expensive treatment process, including tracing the source of contact, blood tests, post-exposure drug prophylaxis and, in instances of proven infection, long term drug treatment. In the UK alone, needlesticks are the second biggest cause of injury in the NHS, affecting over 100,000 healthcare workers, and costing the NHS at least £300 million per year in prevention and treatment.
Michael Korn, an industrial design student at London's Royal College of Art, decided to look more closely into the issue as part of a healthcare design project. Through the College's Helen Hamlyn Centre, Korn was paired with medics from St Mary's Hospital, spending weeks observing ward practices.
The result was a complete redesign of the paper-pulp trays used by nursing staff and a completely new way of using them. Korn's invention, called StickSafe, incorporates a special safely feature that allows one-handed safe use of needles.
StickSafe is a simple, environmentally friendly, low cost device that can significantly reduce needlestick injuries from hypodermic needles and vacutainers. Its innovative design intuitively encourages healthcare workers to adopt safer workplace practices. StickSafe is a redesigned medical tray, which incorporates a patented, easy-to-use clutch mechanism, that allows the healthcare worker to safely unsheath the needle from the cap, and once they have completed their procedure, then allows them to safely recap the needle. The risk of carrying an unsheathed needle around a busy ward is eliminated, and as needles can now be disposed of capped instead of uncapped, so too is the risk of needlesticks from incorrect disposal. StickSafe will also greatly reduce the amount of sharps waste, as the needle can now be disposed of without the syringe attached. In the UK, this means a potential cost saving for the NHS of £160 million.
tags: 
Brilliantly simple design. Best thing I've seen all week! My sister's a nurse, and last year she got a needlestick injury. This would have prevented it from happening. Every hospital should have these.