Dos and Don'ts in Injection

Recommendations

• Safe injection practices: The following recommendations apply to the use of needles, cannulas that replace needles, and, where applicable intravenous delivery systems.
• Use aseptic technique to avoid contamination of sterile injection equipment.
• Do not administer medications from a syringe to multiple patients, even if the needle or cannula on the syringe is changed. Needles, cannulae and syringes are sterile, single-use items; they should not be reused for another patient nor to access a medication or solution that might be used for a subsequent patient
• Consider using newer injection device technologies wherever possible.
• Use fluid infusion and administration sets (i.e., intravenous bags, tubing and connectors) for one patient only and dispose appropriately after use. Consider a syringe or needle/cannula contaminated once it has been used to enter or connect to a patient s intravenous infusion bag or administration set. Use single-dose vials for parenteral medications whenever possible
• Do not administer medications from single-dose vials or ampules to multiple patients or combine leftover contents for later use.
• If multi dose vials must be used, both the needle or cannula and syringe used to access the multi dose vial must be sterile.
• Do not keep multi dose vials in the immediate patient treatment area and store in accordance with the manufacturer's recommendations; discard if sterility is compromised or questionable.
• Do not use bags or bottles of intravenous solution as a common source of supply for multiple patients. Infection control practices for special lumbar puncture procedures
• Wear a surgical mask when placing a catheter or injecting material into the spinal canal or subdural space (i.e., during myelograms, lumbar puncture and spinal or epidural anesthesia.

Follow Seven R^s-

• Right medication;
• Right dose;
• Right patient and site;
• Right time;
• Right route of administration;
• Right documentation and
• Right disposal

Source: National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC)