Efficacy of remote audio‐visual system versus standard onsite buddy system to monitor the doffing of personal protective equipment during COVID‐19 pandemic: An observational study

Objectives Literature states a higher self‐contamination rate among healthcare workers (HCWs) while doffing personal protective equipment (PPE). During the Covid‐19 pandemic, onsite trained observers were not always available to monitor PPE compliance. The remote audio‐visual doffing surveillance (R...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The International journal of health planning and management 2024-03, Vol.39 (2), p.530-540
Main Authors: Lazar, Michelle Shirin, Ganesh, Venkata, Naik B, Naveen, Singh, Ajay, Puri, G. D., Kaur, Sukhpal
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anxiety
Biosafety
Biosecurity
Checklist
Contamination
COVID-19
Disease prevention
doffing
Effectiveness
Efficacy
Health care
Health care facilities
Health care industry
Health facilities
Hospitals
Humans
Infrastructure
Intensive care
Intensive care units
Medical personnel
Monitoring systems
Observation
Observational studies
Occupational exposure
Occupational hazards
Occupational health
Onsite
Pandemics
Pandemics - prevention & control
Personal protective equipment
PPE
Prospective Studies
Protective equipment
remote
Remote monitoring
Risk factors
safety
satisfaction
Surveillance
Surveillance systems
system
Telemedicine
Visual system
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Summary:Objectives Literature states a higher self‐contamination rate among healthcare workers (HCWs) while doffing personal protective equipment (PPE). During the Covid‐19 pandemic, onsite trained observers were not always available to monitor PPE compliance. The remote audio‐visual doffing surveillance (RADS) system has the potential to overcome this limitation. We aimed to compare the efficacy of this real‐time RADS system against the onsite buddy system for monitoring the doffing of PPE. Methods This prospective, observational study was carried out at our tertiary care centre in northern India. 200 HCWs who cared for Covid‐19 patients in the intensive care units/operation theatres were included. Group A included HCWs who performed doffing with the help of an onsite trained observer and group B included HCWs who performed doffing with the RADS system. An independent observer noted the error at any step using the CDC doffing checklist, in both groups. An online questionnaire to analyse the level of satisfaction post‐doffing was also surveyed. Results The proportion of errors committed during doffing was significantly lower in group B compared to group A with a low relative risk of 0.34 (95% CI 0.22–0.51) (p 
ISSN:0749-6753
1099-1751
DOI:10.1002/hpm.3754