Tag Archives: injection safety

Building community for safe injections!

February 23, 2015

Evelyn McKnight and Lauren Lollini

www.ONEandONLYCampaign.org

HONOReform is a proud member of the Safe Injection Practices Coalition. Led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the SIPC developed and distributes the award-winning One and Only Campaign materials (“One Needle, One Syringe, Only One Time”). The One & Only Campaign is a public health campaign to raise awareness among patients and healthcare providers about safe injection practices. There are many, many resources designed for healthcare providers – posters, videos, brochures, checklists, continuing education opportunities and guidance for infection prevention specific to injection safety. There are resources tailored for specific situations such as dentistry and diabetes care.

While we applaud the efforts of our colleagues and stand beside them, we also must note that materials designed for patients seem, at this stage, inadequate. Currently, this is the core document developed by SIPC to be used specifically for outreach to patients: Patient Brochure. read more »

Making Lemonade: One CRNA’s Story of Addiction and Recovery

February 16, 2015

Evelyn McKnight and Lauren Lollini

Anita Bertrand, CRNA, was the featured speaker at this year’s AANA annual meeting

In healthcare, it’s all about saving lives, right? But what happens when it’s about saving the lives of those who are usually the ones caring for the patients? In the case of the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, it is truly about saving lives as well as caring for their peers. Thanks to their health and wellness series, they are bringing awareness through education as well as teaching their members to look past themselves while gaining a better care for all. Thanks to their peer assistance program, it is much easier for nurse anesthetists to help one another. read more »

2014 was a very good year for HONOReform!

February 9, 2015

Evelyn McKnight and Lauren Lollini

HONOReform is the only national advocay organization dedicated to protecting patients through safeguarding the medical injection process.

Once a year, we take some time from our daily work to reflect on what we accomplished throughout the year and set s ome goals for the upcoming year. We are so grateful to you, our fellow advocates, for your steadfast support of injection safety. Below is HONOReform’s End of Year Report, 2014.

Our Mission and Vision

HONOReform is the only national advocacy organization dedicated to protecting patients through safeguarding the medical injection process “from manufacturing to disposal.” Our vision is a nation in which health care providers always follow fundamental injection safety practices that are designed to protect all patients each nd every time they receive an injection.

HONOReform International Debut

HONOReform representatives, including Evelyn and Tom McKnight, traveled to India in September. Our aim was to visit cities and villages and observe healthcare delivery. We visited hospitals and clinics, and we had the opportunity to meet with local patient advocates. Along with our industry partners, we presented to public health leaders, national government officials and a representative of the World Health Organization. Our goal going forward is to help form an injection safety coalition in India.

Presentations and Media

Led by co-founder and president Evelyn McKnight, who continues to present her story on the ongoing need to always use safe injection practices, HONOReform presented at 30 events attended by nearly 3500 people. HONOReform was featured in national media over 25 times in 2014, and we helped lead the much-quoted April 17 USA Today article titled “Doctors, medical staff put patients at risk.”

Updated HONOReform website

Evelyn and HONOReform are active on social media, particularly twitter (#HONOReform). On our streamlined website, click on “JOIN THE CONVERSATION” to receive up-to-the-minute information from HONOReform (on Twitter and Facebook). Also, be sure to check out and subscribe to the HONOReform blog, “Survivor Stories,” edited by Evelyn and Lauren Lollini. To submit an idea for our blog or an article, contact Steve Langan at 402.659.6343 or steve@www.HONOReform.org.

HONOResponse

Sadly, some healthcare providers in the United States continue to reuse and misuse medical equipment, including syringes. Additional focus areas this year included reuse and misuse of single- and multi-dose vials of medication and responding to increasing reports of drug diversion among healthcare workers. Through the HONOResponse program, active in five states in 2014, HONOReform is poised to help patients and communities immediately following a patient notification or confirmed outbreak.

The SIPC and the Campaign

HONOReform is a proud member of the Safe Injection Practices Coalition (SIPC), which provides support for the One and Only Campaign (OneandOnlyCampaign.org). The SIPC continues to develop and distribute new materials, and we continue to raise awareness among healthcare providers and patients about the absolute need for safe injection practices. In 2014, HONOReform discussed with SIPC colleagues a need to emphasize and extend the patient voice. As always, please contact HONOReform and allow us to help you access the materials that will be most useful to you and your institution—if you are a healthcare worker—or your family—if you are a patient.

Support for State Legislation

HONOReform is particularly proud of our many partners in New Hampshire, who pushed for the landmark “Medical Technician Registry” and “Drug Free Workplace” bills, which were signed in to law in June. HONOReform was also active in working toward legislation in North Dakota—where an injection safety proclamation was established. HONOReform is dedicated to advocating for injection safety legislation at the state level.

Our Academic Partners

HONOReform appreciated the many opportunities this year to meet, in person and online, with students from local and area universities and colleges, as they studied the consequences of unsafe injections. We welcome the opportunity to share the HONOReform story and highlight the need to always emphasize injection safety. Our academic partners include University of Nebraska-Omaha, Midland University, Methodist Nursing College, the College of St Mary, St. Louis University and Southeast Community College—among others.

HONOReform Year End Appeal

We are grateful to our many donors for the ongoing support of our mission. Contributions to our annual appeal for donations, response to a request from founder Evelyn McKnight, were especially helpful. Contributions to HONOReform come in a variety of forms. Thank you for helping us to continue to safeguard the medical injection process in the United States.

Our Goals for 2015

We have designated 2015 the HONOReform “Year of Community.” We encourage HONOReform patient advocates and family advocates, our many partner organizations, and the extended national injection safety network to join us. We encourage you to join HONOReform social media and help us extend the conversation and our reach!

Happy New Year!

January 5, 2015

Evelyn McKnight and Lauren Lollini

Welcome back to the HONOReform blog, aka “Survivor Stories,” for our second full year of publication. We thank everyone who has had a role in making our blog a growing success—contributors and readers and everyone who has suggested to friends that they should check out our blog and pass it on to others.
And we encourage you to please continue to support our efforts.
Here at HONOReform, community-building is a key to emphasizing safe injection practices and doing all we can to educate the public and reeducate providers on the absolute necessity of injection safety.
read more »

It’s very important to keep your eyes open because this could happen anywhere”

November 10, 2014

Evelyn McKnight and Lauren Lollini

Healthcare providers can be ‘survivors’ of unsafe injections

Usually in this space we share stories from patients who have survived an unsafe injection. Today we are sharing the survival story of a physician who stopped colleagues from performing unsafe injections during her residency.

Here is Susan’s story

My story of improper injections is from my residency. I was in my third year of family practice residency in Minnesota and I was starting a procedures rotation. The attending physician and nurses were preparing for procedures that day – mainly mole removals and simple skin techniques. I noticed that after the first procedure the nurses took the needle off of the syringe and put a new needle on it in order to use the same syringe of anesthetic for the second patient.

I told them, “You can’t do that.”
They explained that because the attending physician was not drawing back it was actually safe to use the same syringe with a different needle.

I told them that it was NOT the case and then we put the needle and syringe into the sharps container. After class that day I spoke with the program director and several others at the residency. By the next week when I was back on that rotation the procedure had changed. I noticed that there was some conversation between the attending physician and the nurses about how that change had come about.

I was just shocked and appalled at the time. Residency is very stressful. In addition to the stress of learning so many things, I didn’t think I would have to be stressed about watching healthcare providers to make sure they were using proper injection technique. Its just very important to always keep your eyes open because this could happen anywhere.

How my 6 year old found the CDC website

October 6, 2014

Evelyn McKnight and Lauren Lollini

Lauren and her 6 year old daughter Lucy

When I was infected with Hepatitis C, my daughter had just turned one. The devastation of such a horrendous diagnosis coupled with the new person who was now in my life was almost stranger than fiction. Now more than five years later, after a wild ride and a journey still in process, I have started to open up to my daughter and talk a bit about the drug diversion which caused my disease.

I know, I know, Lucy is only six and the idea of drug diversion seems a pretty intense subject for a first grader. But every so often she asks me to tell the story and I know which one she means. And as it is a very long story with many twists and turns, I always ask, which part?
read more »

Sharing stories, transforming healthcare

September 15, 2014

Evelyn McKnight and Lauren Lollini

“If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”
– Mother Theresa

Evelyn McKnight, president of HONOReform

Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of “Survivor’s Stories” blog. We thank you for your loyal readership, and we ask you to share with all your associates.

Today we want to thank the many people who have so graciously shared their personal stories with us. Thank you Barbara, Johnny, Mary, Amanda, Ron, Tom, Kim, Tom, Chuck, Melisa, Patty, Tam, Jan, Sharon, Joe, Karen, Rich and Anita for sharing your own story of how your life has been affected by unsafe injections. We know how difficult it can be to share such deeply personal stories with others, especially total strangers. We also know how vitally important it is.

The number of Americans that have been affected by unsafe injections in the past decade is staggering, reaching into the hundreds of thousands. Yet these numbers, although alarming, do not bring about change as readily as the story of the one. These numbers are dry statistics, “human beings with the tears dried off,” and fail to spark emotion or feeling and thus fail to motivate action. Social psychologists argue that this reflects the way our consciences and ethical systems are based on individual stories and are distinct from the parts of our brains concerned with logic and rationality. See “Psychic Numbing and Genocide” for more fascinating information on the numbing effect of impersonal data.

It is the personal stories that change hearts. And when hearts are changed, behaviors are changed. Healthcare becomes safer for all Americans.

I will never forget my first visit to Capitol Hill to visit my congressional delegation’s offices. Congressmen are busy people, and the staff that supports them is equally busy. When I first sat down with staffers, I could read distraction and disinterest in their faces. But as I told my story, they became transformed. They peered at me closely. They asked questions. They took notes. And by the end of the interview, they asked me what their boss could do to help and even made offers of what he would do that day.

Personal stories are powerful. When there is a face on an issue, it becomes real. It moves people to action.

I was very nervous the first time I told my story publicly, which was to a nursing class at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. After the class, the professor said to me, “Today you have spoken to a hundred new nurses. After hearing you speak, they will never compromise patient safety. Through your story, you have made healthcare safer for all the patients that they will serve, which will be thousands upon thousands over the course of their careers.” The butterflies in my stomach flew away immediately, and after looking at it in this way, I have never been reluctant to share my story ever since.

Do you have a story to tell?
How would hearing your story motivate providers, policymakers and manufacturers to commit to safe injections?

Again, we thank all the many people who have shared with others how their lives have been affected by unsafe injections. And we ask those of you who have a story, but have not shared it, to let us help you tell your story. Contact me anytime at evelyn@www.honoreform.org. Thank you.

Next week we will discuss how sharing stories help the people who have been affected by unsafe injections.

Take the Ice Bucket Challenge for injection safety!

September 1, 2014

Evelyn McKnight and Lauren Lollini

Evelyn McKnight, president of HONOReform

Join HONOReform to take the Ice Bucket Challenge for Injection Safety!

http://youtu.be/pEucyGs-wGc

Making Lemonade: One CRNA’s Story of Addiction and Recovery – Part 1

August 11, 2014

Evelyn McKnight and Lauren Lollini

Anita Bertrand, CRNA, will be presenting at the upcoming AANA annual meeting

Anita Bertrand is a certified nurse anesthetist. She will be giving the 11th Annual Jan Stewart Memorial Lecture at the AANA 2014 Nurse Anesthesia Annual Congress
September 13-16, 2014 Orlando, Florida. We are grateful to her for sharing her story of addiction and recovery today and next week.

A recent report by the CDC identifies drug diversion in health care settings as the cause of potential exposure of blood-borne pathogens to nearly 30,000 Americans over a ten year period “Outbreaks of Infections Associated With Drug Diversion by US Health Care Personnel”. Drug diversion is commonly attributed to healthcare workers (HCW) who are addicted to drugs. In my experience as an addicted HCW, I understand how this inconceivable incidence can occur, although it seems incomprehensible that I could be the cause of such devastating harm to my patients, others and to myself. I also understand the impairment the disease of addiction causes to the HCW’s ability to make rational and safe decisions for both self and for patients under his or her care.

There are many unanswered questions and I don’t have all of the answers:
• How many HCWs are suffering from the disease of addiction/alcoholism and hiding in fear of the future, not getting treatment and/or have no access to treatment upon discovery?
• How many of my colleagues are practicing and do not recognize or are willing to admit they are chemically dependent?
• How many HCW recognize the dependency and have no idea what to do?
• How many families, friends and employers suspect a problem and don’t know what to do to help?
• Can helping addicted HCWs contribute to drug diversion prevention and lessen the risk to patients?

Addiction is a disease, not a choice.
My experience as a HCW with an addiction to opioids has demonstrated that I did not, and do not have, control over my behavior when actively using. The disease had taken over my thinking and decision making capabilities when it comes to the use of, and administering of drugs to patients.

My behavior was incomprehensible, both in terms of what I did in order to obtain the drug of addiction as well as in the manner in which I took care of patients. The harm caused to patients by HCWs is both direct and indirect, in the lack of care, provided by the HCW and in the inability to be cognizant of the care provided. The HCW active in the disease of addiction is constantly focused on when and how to obtain/divert the next drug, thereby not focused on the patient and his/her needs or care. I understand how unsafe injection practices occur when addicted HCW are not identified and treated. I also understand how the disease continues to progress to more and more risky behavior for both patient and provider when action is not taken to arrest the disease.

There are many limitations to identifying HCWs with the disease of addiction. My disease was permitted to progress for many months as I became more careless and harmful to both myself and patients under my care. In the end I was grateful to have been discovered, for I realize today that the fear and shame would have carried me to my death.

Stigma of Addiction
Fear and shame are the emotions that isolated me. Even though I knew how to find support and treatment, the tremendous fear and shame of being identified and removed from the workplace in order to get treatment paralyzed me. I knew the insurmountable stigma of this disease would follow me, in terms of my license and career.

The disease of addiction/alcoholism causes abhorrent and sometimes, criminal behavior. Discovered in active addiction/alcoholism, HCWs are commonly terminated. Removal from the workplace is the only appropriate action for both patient and provider safety. But with termination, they are left without a means for the desperately needed treatment for the disease. When HCWs have a stroke, a heart attack, are diagnosed with cancer, or a hyper/hypoglycemic crisis, they are removed from the work environment, encouraged and supported in treatment for their disease, and permitted in most cases to return to the work when their disease is stable or in remission. Additionally, it is common that friends and colleagues go to great lengths to assist the HCW by covering shifts, providing meals for the family, and even giving up PTO time to help the HCW in financial crisis due to their disease.

Compared with other disease conditions, support for the addicted HCW is in short supply. Lack of knowledge and understanding of the disease, stigma, and misjudgment prohibits others from being helpful. The recent USA Today piece, “Doctors, Medical Staff on Drugs Put Patients at Risk” covered some of my story. But, there is much more to say. My husband was left with a two year old, starting a new job and having no immediate family in the city while I went off to treatment 1000+ miles away for 18 weeks. Where were all our friends? Where were all the colleagues I’d worked with all those years? Nobody brought over a casserole or offered to babysit so he could have a break and take care of himself. The inability to ask for help extends to the families, who also face the stigma and shame surrounding this disease. Addiction and alcoholism impacts everyone who cares and knows the HCW.

This stigma only perpetuates the disease, the denial, and the ability to obtain lifesaving treatment. That fear, shame, and stigma prevented me from asking for help early in my disease when I had a moment of clarity. It prevented my husband from understanding the depth of the problem so that he could seek help for me.

Next week, Anita continues her story of addiction and recovery.

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