Beepers, Needlesticks, and Building a Safer Workplace

Needlesticks and bloodborne pathogen exposures are more than just workplace injuries. They’re personal, emotional, and preventable. With thousands of cases reported annually in U.S. hospitals, addressing this issue is critical to staff safety and organizational culture.

On this episode of Key In To Quality, Melanie Swift, M.D., Associate Medical Director for Occupational Health, and Seth Clarenbach from Mayo Clinic’s staff safety team, discuss how Mayo is tackling this challenge head-on through policy, engineering, and culture change.

Learn how the multidisciplinary "BEEPERS" committee uses frontline insights and injury data to identify patterns, improve sharps container design, and champion best practices like hands-free passing in surgical settings. The conversation also highlights persistent barriers, like underreporting and risk normalization, and what organizations can do to shift that mindset.

This episode offers key takeaways for healthcare leaders, occupational safety teams, nurses, and quality improvement professionals committed to creating a safer healthcare environment.

Host: Timothy Morgenthaler, M.D. | https://www.linkedin.com/in/timorgenthaler/

Host: Sheri Nemec| https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheryl-sheri-nemec-a627982a/

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