Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Human Factors
Date Submitted: Jun 18, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Jun 20, 2025 - Aug 15, 2025
Date Accepted: Nov 20, 2025
Date Submitted to PubMed: Nov 21, 2025
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Enhancing Safety in Clinical Practice: A Cross-sectional, within-subjects, simulated-use compliance study using BD PosiFlush™ SafeScrub
ABSTRACT
Background:
Needleless access devices are integral to intravenous therapy, but they can also be a source of contamination and potential infection if not properly disinfected and cared for. The BD PosiFlush™ SafeScrub is designed to streamline best practice “scrub the hub” catheter care; and may reduce the microbial growth associated with catheter related blood stream infections (CRBSIs).
Objective:
The objective of this study was to evaluate the compliance of scrubbing prior to flushing with the BD PosiFlush™ SafeScrub in a simulated clinical environment, in comparison to a standard disinfection practice of alcohol swabs and pre-filled saline syringes.
Methods:
A cross-sectional, within-subjects, simulated-use compliance study was conducted involving healthcare professionals who were familiarized in the use of BD PosiFlush™ SafeScrub, which is a BD PosiFlush™ Syringe with an integrated disinfecting unit. The compliance with disinfection was monitored and recorded for both the BD PosiFlush™ SafeScrub and standard disinfection practice (alcohol swabs and pre-filled saline syringes).
Results:
The BD PosiFlush™ SafeScrub, with an integrated disinfection unit, demonstrated a total compliance rate of 34% for scrubbing catheter hubs prior to flushing. This represents a significant increase when compared with the 17% compliance rate (P < .001) achieved using the current widely accepted practice of alcohol swabs and pre-filled saline syringes. Use of BD PosiFlush™ SafeScrub demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in compliance with disinfection practice compared to the standard disinfection practice.
Conclusions:
The BD PosiFlush™ SafeScrub device approximately doubled the scrub the hub compliance before flushing over the standard practice of alcohol pads and pre-filled saline syringes.
Citation
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Copyright
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