Case Study:
A Nurse's Story - The Power of One
What would you do if you were a health care worker who became infected with HIV/AIDS from a secondary needlestick injury, and then discovered that almost a million professionals suffer from such incidents each year, despite the fact that there are devices which eliminate such injuries.
"What's wrong with this picture?...Nobody should have to suffer the way I am or the way my family is...If we have the technology, what's it going to take to get it in place?...Isn't saving human lives worth the extra pennies to justify the slightly more expensive technology that eliminates exposure to deadly needlesticks?..."
The issue of secondary needlestick injuries is much like saving the rain forest, cutting down on pollution, eradicating famine, nuclear threats and/or war. Everybody nods their head in agreement that these are things about which we should do something. But, since no one has bottom line responsibility for these issues, effectively not much gets done.
But, this is changing as digital technologies get sprinkled into our social equations. Consider this nurse's story.
In 1992, three months out of nursing school while working for a community hospital in Lancaster Pennsylvania, Lynda suffered from a "secondary needlestick" (she was stabbed by a dying patient). Ultimately, she tested positive for HIV and was livid to discover that each year over 800,000 health care professionals in acute care facilities across North America suffer from such needlesticks; each needlestick represents a 30% risk of contracting Hepatitis B/C and/or HIV/AIDS; over 1000 patented devices exist which eliminate this occupational hazard.
At twenty-two, her life's dreams were cut short. Mostly because nobody in a health care facility has bottom-line responsibility for saving lives. Administrators get rewarded for saving money, not lives.
After she processed her anger, she decided to roll up her sleeves and make a difference. It was in 1996 that she hit my radar screen.
At the time, I had been doing some Web work for a small medical device manufacturer. The owner's daughter was my contact and a woman with great courage and vision. "Chuck, you keep talking about new technology offering us new ways of doing things, so how about Lynda's situation, what can be done here? After all, she's on the same side of the fence as we are in trying to inspire the health care industry to adopt the more intelligent, safer needles. However, we don't want to look like we are capitalizing on her misfortunes, nor can we have an unfunded liability..."
Two years earlier, I had developed the concept of ValueSites, a model for harnessing the power of Internet and affinity groups. The essence of the idea was to organize a Web site around a particular topic with a core group of objective editors managing the relations and contributions with stakeholders who shared a vested interest in the topic (e.g., educators, manufacturers, publications, researchers, unions, etc.). Each group would contribute content and energy from their respective core competency, thereby bringing a level of credibility and synergy to the whole, unmatchable by any one player on their own.
I remember very clearly one prospective meeting with an equipment manufacturer who had a division that catered to criminal labs doing DNA testing. When we researched their competition on-line, everybody was doing the same thing - brochureware. I said to this prospect, "Imagine your lab customer's point of view. Each one of your competitors comes in and says, 'Hey check out our Web site...' This poor lab person is probably suffering from expanded work loads, more complexity, and shrinking resources. So after they visit these sites, what's in it for them to come back...How can they filter the party line bias from objective information...Why not team up with your favorite research groups, magazines, test tube manufacturers and others who share an interest in the criminal lab customer...Help this person save discretionary time costs ..."
ValueSites were a good idea on paper but I couldn't sell them. Pitches in the boardrooms of some the best companies would get nods of approval, but check signatures were not to be had.
When I showed the ValueSites model to my client, they said "We're in - let's do it." They awarded me an educational grant for $5,000 to create and implement a Web-centric strategy to help Lynda foster industry awareness. This was the jump-start that created national change.
Thus the Campaign for Health Care Worker Safety was initiated as a 501(c)(3) organization (non-profit). Our strategy was simple. We would go out into the world and ask hospital administrators to take our free safety pledge. In exchange, we would send them a certificate that they could display showing that they took the pledge. There was one stipulation: We would also be recording their replies on the Web site.
The heart of our site contained an old fashion Ben Franklin Balance Sheet tricked out with a dynamic database on a Web server. We had a "Yes" and a "No" column by state.
Many would say "No" to the safety pledge, e.g., "I'm sorry Lynda, while we are sympathetic to your plight, it is not our opportunity..." - until they saw their names on the site. Then they'd change their minds.
In addition to this Ben Franklin Balance Sheet, we had:
- Endorsements from almost every professional healthcare association/group
- Product listings of all known safe devices with links to manufacturers and the ability to add/share comments in real-time
- Sundry threaded discussion areas and links to critical support resources for others at risk
In less than two years, starting from ground zero, the Campaign's results were impressive:
- Two books by DreamWorks - My Mommy Has Aids - A Guide to Understanding, Compassion, and Prevention for Children of All Ages; and Angels of Love - A Guide to Understanding and Celebrating Adoption and Diversity for All Families
- Documentary video by Johnson and Johnson
- Federal legislation drive by California Congressman Pete Stark
- California law during Fall of 1998 and dozens of states since
- Press Articles in ASEPSIS, McCalls, Nursing, The New York Times and more
- Thousands of supporters along the way (e.g., acute care facilities, associations, family, friends, manufacturers, peers, unions and many more)
This is the power of digital technologies combined with applied creative spirit.
Think back five or ten years ago. This kind of strategic effort would have been nearly impossible. An organic list of growing responses would have been expensive to constantly reproduce, via analog media, and then mail out.
The technology played a critical role in helping this young woman roar in a noisy jungle of not-caring-enoughs, in birthing awareness, and in laws that are unfolding better ways.
While we still have a long way to go before secondary needlesticks are a thing of the past, we would like to think the Campaign added "to the community woodpile" - a collective effort centered around one very brave and determined soul. Bravo, Lynda!
Note: With legislative efforts in full swing, Lynda asked us to close down the Campaign's site in 1998, as she wished to enjoy the balance of her life in private. Today, other organizations, such as the Frontline Healthcare Workers Safety Foundation, are picking up where we left off.
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