Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
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We attempted to examine an outbreak of acute gastroenteritis among the staff of the emergency department of Glasgow Royal Infirmary. We specifically looked at the pattern of spread among staff, the estimated hours of sick time and the practicalities of applying standard hospital guidelines for infection control within the emergency department. ⋯ We hypothesise that the infection was introduced from the community on several occasions and was subsequently passed among staff within the department. Infection control measures designed for the inpatient setting can be partially applied to the emergency department. We felt the most useful measures would be early identification and isolation of infectious patients, barrier nursing, escalation of cleaning of the department and early investment in replacement staff to allow ill staff members to remain isolated at home and to prevent understaffing.