Open Access1196. Is the Weekend Staff Really to Blame? Challenges in Isolation Compliance at an Academic Tertiary Care Center
Author(s) -
Sonia Bassett,
Kristen Boston,
Luis OstroskyZeichner
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
open forum infectious diseases
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.546
H-Index - 35
ISSN - 2328-8957
DOI - 10.1093/ofid/ofz360.1059
Subject(s) - medicine , audit , isolation (microbiology) , hygiene , infection control , compliance (psychology) , personal protective equipment , tertiary care , patient safety , medical emergency , family medicine , health care , emergency medicine , covid-19 , infectious disease (medical specialty) , surgery , psychology , disease , business , accounting , social psychology , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , pathology , economics , economic growth
Background Transmission-based isolation precautions are implemented in an effort to decrease the risk of transmission of pathogens. Weekend staff are perceived to have lower compliance. Methods Visual observation of healthcare worker (HCW) compliance with an institutional isolation precautions practices was done at an academic tertiary care center. In the first quarter of 2019, observations were completed for 894 patients who required contact, droplet or airborne isolation precautions. Observations included patients with infection or colonization with multi-drug-resistant organisms (MDRO) or highly transmissible infections. Observations focused on availability of appropriate supplies, compliance with infection control practices, and documentation. Audits were performed on workdays and weekends, and results were communicated to unit leadership via email. Comparison of proportions was calculated using the normal approximation in Minitab18. Results Compliance with the different elements of the audit can be seen in Table 1. HCW compliance with the use of personal protective equipment and hand hygiene on exit from the room had the lowest compliance and was statistically lower on weekends than on weekdays, and compliance was significantly lower than all other categories for both weekday and weekend measurements. Fifty-seven percent of all patients had missed compliance on one or more elements. There was not a statistically significant variation in practice between weekends and weekdays in overall compliance. Conclusion There is opportunity for improvement in all compliance on isolation practices facility-wide, and elements that require changes in behavior had the lowest compliance, and were lower on weekend shifts. We did not find other differences in performance for weekend staff vs. weekday staff. Educational measures should focus on all individual staff across all shifts. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.