Long-Term Care Survey Alert

CDC directive focuses on diabetes care procedures and techniques.

• Prepare medications such as insulin in a centralized medication area; multiple dose insulin vials should be assigned to individual patients and labeled appropriately.

• Never reuse needles, syringes, or lancets.

• Restrict use of fingerstick capillary blood sampling devices to individual patients. Consider selecting single-use lancets that permanently retract upon puncture.

• Dispose of used fingerstick devices and lancets at the point of use in an approved sharps container.

• Environmental surfaces such as glucometers should be decontaminated regularly and anytime contamination with blood or body fluids occurs or is suspected.

• Glucometers should be assigned to individual patients. If a glucometer that has been used for one patient must be reused for another patient, the device must be cleaned and disinfected.

• Maintain supplies and equipment such as fingerstick devices and glucometers within individual patient rooms if possible.

• Any trays or carts used to deliver medications or supplies to individual patients should remain outside patient rooms. Do not carry supplies and medications in pockets.

• Because of possible inadvertent contamination, unused supplies and medications taken to a patient's bedside during fingerstick monitoring or insulin administration should not be used for another patient.