Reusable Blood Tube holder

[opinion222]

Hi

I have been on this forum for personal reasons and for education. I would firstly like to thank Dr. Handsfield for the time he spends answering our questions.

I am a South African but spend large amounts of my time in places like West and Central Africa (where HIV should be taken exceptionally seriously) on business. Obviously the medical care has a lot to be desired and our company hires SOS to suggest safe medical facilities within that country for all employees.

On spending large amounts of time in these places contracting things like malaria etc is inevitable. This requires the employee/patient to have blood tests etc.

We have done our best to ensure that facilities are safe and disposable equipment is used. This long winded background leads to the specifics.

These facilities are still reusing blood tube holders or barrels with unused disposable needles (they break the seal infront of the patient). I did not see this as a problem as the blood draw needle seems to be an isolated system which takes blood from your vein directly into the vial it does not ever come into contact with the barrel. The NPA seems to think that reusing blood tube holders / barrels presents a risk for infecting the patient. In your knowledge does this really present a risk for transmitting HIV or hepatitis.

Thanks

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

I'm not an expert in this area, but my understanding is that the system and methods you describe are safe.  We use them in my STD clinic and I'm pretty sure they are routine in most health care settings. That said, new systems come along frequently and I don't follow this area of research.

Best wishes-- HHH, MD

[Christie2004]

I'm a nurse, and I can tell you in every hospital where I have ever worked, those blood tube holders are reused unless visibly soiled.  Then they are discarded.
I asked our lab, and they reuse them, too.  

It might be hard for some to visualize these holders.  The needles, as you said, are sterile and sealed.  They are not reused.  The needle hub screws into the holder.  Multiple tubes of blood are drawn from the same patient in this manner, without the need to do more than one venipunture.  

I'll be interested in Dr. HHH's response, too.

[opinion222]

Well according to a study done by the NPA 99% of blood tube holders were found to be contaminated with blood. As an Engineer and having specifically looked at the system myself I find this statistic inconceivable.

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

As I said, I am not an expert in this area.  But with proper use, I doubt contamination of the vacutainer holder poses any risk to patients undergoing venipuncture.  (Vacutainer is one brand of such equipment, but is used generically in many health care settings, like Kleenex or Xerox.)  The greater risk may be to the provider doing the procedure, but even that must be trivial, essentially zero if they used proper procedures, including protective gloves.

HHH, MD