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Safety Precautions and Operating Procedures in an ABSL-4 Laboratory: 3. Aerobiology
Published on: October 3, 2016
Changes to physician and nurse time burdens when caring for patients under contact precautions
Anna K Barker1, James Codella2, Tola Ewers3
1Department of Population Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI.
Abstract:
Contact precautions are complex behavioral interventions. To better understand barriers to compliance, we conducted a prospective study that compared the time burden for health care workers caring for contact precautions patients versus other patients. We found that nurses spent significantly more time in the rooms of contact precautions patients. There was no significant change in physician timing. Future studies need to evaluate workflow changes so that barriers to contact precaution implementation can be fully understood and addressed.
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