Experience of comprehensive interventions in reducing occupational exposure to COVID-19

The infection of medical personnel with COVID-19 was a disaster for both patients and doctors. However, some effective measures can prevent medical staff from becoming infected. This article introduces those measures and thus provides a reference for other hospitals.

In order to reduce the risk of occupational exposure and of the infection of medical staff, this article analyzed the factors, causes and experience of medical personnel on their occupational exposure to COVID-19. Some effective and targeted intervention measures can be implemented in order to avoid the occupational exposure of medical staff to COVID-19.

In this single-center case series involving 196 medical personnel, occupational exposure to COVID-19 was present. Nursing staff accounted for 67.35% of those cases. The relationships with an exposure source were found to be as follows: doctors and patients (87.24%), colleagues (10.20%), and roommates (2.55%). Occupational exposure was found to be present in the clinical department, radiology department, central sterile supply department, as well as in the outpatient clinics and operating rooms. The non-surgical departments accounted for 72.96% and direct contact accounted for 84.69% while failure to wear surgical masks (84.18%) and operating on the patient without wearing goggles/face shield (8.16%) were the main causes of occupational exposure. The occurrence of occupational exposure to COVID-19 declined to 0.19% after an extensive and comprehensive intervention program.

Some effective measures such as hand hygiene, wearing surgical masks in and around the hospital, reasonable use of goggles/face screens, raising awareness of protective measures, minimizing the number of elective operations, strengthening training as well as many other control measures were instrumental in reducing occupational exposure. For any medical institution there is room for improvement in terms of personal protection to reduce occupational exposure.