By Marie Rosenthal, MS
AMSTERDAM—Those little rubber tourniquets used while drawing blood could put patients at risk, because they appear to be contaminated with a variety of disease-producing organisms, according to research presented at the 2019 annual European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (poster 1044).
Tourniquets are one of the most widely used and reused items in health care. They are typically used during peripheral venipuncture—the most frequently