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Health care workers’ PPE use often fails CDC guidelines
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Data published in the American Journal of Infection Control suggest many health care workers may not be taking the necessary precautions when removing personal protective equipment.
“As a result of the current Ebola virus outbreak, the critical issue of proper [personal protective equipment (PPE)] removal has come front and center,” Nasia Safdar, MD, PhD, associate professor in the division of infectious disease at University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, and colleagues wrote. “Health care facilities should use this opportunity of heightened interest to undertake practice improvement focused on PPE removal protocol, including technique, for all health care-associated conditions that require the donning and doffing of PPE.”
Safdar and colleagues directly observed the PPE removal practices of HCWs, including physicians, nurses, nursing assistants, physical therapists and occupational therapists at various times of day at an academic health center from Oct. 13, 2014 to Oct. 31, 2014. Observers, whose purpose was not revealed to HCWs unless asked, watched medical personnel enter and leave patient rooms specified for isolation precautions on five units at the health center: internal medicine, surgical transplant, hematology/oncology, general surgery and cardiothoracic medicine.
During the study period, 30 HCWs were observed removing their PPE. Fewer than half (43%) removed their gloves and gown in the correct order, and only 17% disposed of their PPE properly in the patient’s room after removal. Thirteen percent successfully completed those steps and disposed of their PPE “gently” as recommended by CDC guidelines, according to the researchers.
“We found that the majority of HCWs did not remove PPE in the correct order,” Safdar and colleagues wrote. “Previous studies have found that viruses on PPE transfer to hands in experiments involving model viruses and fluorescent tracers. These breaches of PPE removal protocol may be due to a lack of awareness of the proper protocol, time constraints, or lack of realization of the importance of proper PPE removal.” – by David Jwanier
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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