BD, a leader in safety-engineered medical devices, today introduced its BD Vacutainer Push Button Blood Collection Set, a new technology designed to improve the safety of blood collection. The Push Button Blood Collection Set helps improve safety through its unique design: The needle automatically retracts into the device when the healthcare worker pushes the activation button with his or her index finger.

"Blood collection is one of the common causes of the more than 500,000(1) needlestick injuries that occur among U.S. healthcare workers annually," said William A. Kozy, president, BD Clinical Laboratory Solutions. "The launch of this next generation device represents a major technological advancement in a market that has seen moderate improvement in the last decade. It raises the bar on innovation in this important area."

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires that employers incorporate engineering and work practice controls to eliminate or minimize employee exposure to bloodborne pathogens (bloodborne pathogens include HIV, HBV and HCV). However, these efforts are effective only if healthcare workers comply: Research indicates that healthcare workers activate safety features on current blood collection devices 83 percent of the time. "BD has designed the Push Button Blood Collection Set to make activating its safety mechanism easy," said Kozy.

To this end, BD was encouraged by feedback from the 86 healthcare workers at four hospitals in three states, and 13 additional phlebotomists, who participated in pre-launch clinical trials of the device: The vast majority "strongly agreed" that they would always activate the Push Button Blood Collection Set's safety mechanism.

The Push Button Blood Collection Set, which received FDA clearance for both blood collection and short-term infusion, incorporates BD needle technology, which is among the sharpest in the industry.

The introduction of the BD Vacutainer Push Button Blood Collection Set further extends BD's already broad array of safety-engineered products. BD's range of safety products includes more than 200 catalog items for injection, infusion therapy, sample collection, surgery and sharps disposal. BD pioneered the development of safety-engineered medical devices and has been at the forefront of this field for well over a decade.

In an effort to enhance healthcare worker safety, BD has announced its intent to phase out U.S. sales of many conventional sharps devices across a range of product categories, including IV catheters, winged needle sets and lancets. BD will provide safety-engineered devices in all of these categories.