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Variation in health care worker removal of personal protective equipment
Caroline Zellmer1, Sarah Van Hoof1, Nasia Safdar1
1William S. Middleton Veterans Hospital and Section of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI.
Abstract:
In the current era of emerging pathogens such as Ebola virus, removal of personal protective equipment (PPE) is crucial to reduce contamination of health care workers. However, current removal practices are not well described. We undertook a systematic evaluation of health care worker removal of PPE for contact isolation to examine variation in removal procedures. Findings indicate that under usual conditions, only about half of health care workers correctly remove their PPE, and very few remove their PPE in the correct order and dispose of it in the proper location.
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