Articles: personal-protective-equipment.
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Review Comparative Study
A Comparison of Personal Protective Standards: Caring for Patients With Ebola Virus.
The purpose of this article is to discuss the variance in requirements for personal protective equipment (PPE) used among healthcare workers to treat patients actively infected with the Ebola virus in West Africa. ⋯ The rapid decline in Ebola mortality is multifactorial. The efforts of US military medical personnel likely were a contributing factor in this rapid decline as those international health workers were afforded the latest in PPE training with strict attention to detail. US military medical personnel, in concert with other governmental agencies, created a potent force multiplier in the efforts to curb this deadly infection. The educational initiative was essential to the slowdown in the spread of the Ebola virus in Liberia. Recommendations for a detailed review of the PPE standards and variances in practice from both WHO and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are necessary to standardize processes across international healthcare workers to expedite the care for future infectious disease outbreaks. A possible solution is to modify the PPE process to standardize with the WHO guidelines. Key stakeholders from all levels (staff nurse, clinical nurse specialist, nurse managers, infectious disease experts, etc) need to be heavily involved in this process.
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Clinical therapeutics · Nov 2015
ReviewPersonal Protective Equipment: Protecting Health Care Providers in an Ebola Outbreak.
The recent Ebola epidemic that devastated West Africa has infected and killed more health care providers than any other outbreak in the history of this virus. An improved understanding of pathogen transmission and the institution of strategies to protect health care providers against infection are needed in infectious disease outbreaks. This review connects what is known about Ebola virus transmission with personal protective equipment (PPE) designed to arrest nosocomial transmission. ⋯ Current recommendations about PPE and the donning and doffing processes are based on anecdotal experience. However, the use of non-human viruses can help provide evidence-based guidelines on both PPE and donning and doffing processes.
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Emerg. Med. Clin. North Am. · Feb 2015
ReviewChecklists for Hazardous Materials Emergency Preparedness.
Preparation for, and response to, hazardous materials emergencies requires both preplanning and just-in-time information management. The development of an emergency operations plan and a hazardous materials incident response plan involves many steps and implicates numerous resources: institutional, governmental, and private. ⋯ The availability of resources, human and informatics, as well as the means for accessing them, inevitably changes over time. The reader is advised to update all links and telephone numbers on a regularly scheduled basis.