Articles: personal-protective-equipment.
-
Healthcare providers and law enforcement utilize spit socks to prevent exposure to communicable diseases transmitted by bodily fluid projection from agitated individuals. There are cases in which death is reported due to breathing being limited by a spit sock. There are no formally published studies on their use and safety. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether wearing a spit sock causes a clinically significant impact on breathing. ⋯ In healthy subjects there were no clinically significant changes in the physiologic parameters of breathing while wearing a spit sock.
-
Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol · Feb 2019
Human factors-based risk analysis to improve the safety of doffing enhanced personal protective equipment.
To systematically assess enhanced personal protective equipment (PPE) doffing safety risks. ⋯ Despite detailed guidelines, our study revealed 103 enhanced PPE doffing failure modes. Analysis of the failure modes suggests potential mitigation strategies to decrease self-contamination risk during enhanced PPE doffing.
-
Epidemiol Mikrobiol Imunol · Jan 2019
Decontamination of CBRN units contaminated by highly contagious biological agents.
A decontamination process plays a key role in management of biological incidents. While decontamination of surfaces and buildings located in the hot zone can be usually postponed until an agent is confirmed and an adequate planning phase is established, personnel wearing personal protective equipment must be decontaminated prior to their final exit from the hot zone. ⋯ Experimental tests with surrogates of biological agents are thus necessary to identify above-mentioned points. Once an optimal decontamination procedure is recognized, a field rehearsal must follow and the method using a surrogate must be implemented into a training process of CBRN units.
-
Am J Infect Control · Dec 2018
Risk of self-contamination during doffing of personal protective equipment.
PPE doffing carries significant risk for self-contamination. Assisted doffing likely reduces this risk.
pearl -
The Journal of infection · Dec 2018
A unified personal protective equipment ensemble for clinical response to possible high consequence infectious diseases: A consensus document on behalf of the HCID programme.
The importance of appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) as a component of healthcare worker (HCW) protection was highlighted during the Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa. The large number of HCW deaths in Africa was in part due to lack of resources or prior training in PPE usage. As part of the Ebola legacy, the High Consequence Infectious Disease (HCID) programme was initiated by NHS England and Public Health England (PHE) to improve preparedness for Ebola and other infections that not only endanger the life of the patient, but also pose particular dangers to HCWs. ⋯ At a workshop with an expert stakeholder group, the data were examined and a unified PPE ensemble agreed. This ensemble was then tested in the same simulation exercise and no evidence of any HCW contamination was seen after doffing. Following further review by the working group, a consensus agreement has been reached and a unified 'HCID assessment PPE' ensemble, with accompanying donning and doffing protocols, is presented here.