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Novel Deployment of Pediatric Biocontainment Unit Nurses in Response to COVID-19
Stephanie Heather Kinlay1, Jon Whiting, Pascale Audain
1Stephanie Heather Kinlay is an RN in the biocontainment unit (BCU) and medical ICU (MICU) at Boston Children's Hospital, where Pascale Audain is an RN in the BCU and MICU and the MICU-based infection prevention coordinator, Paula Conrad is an infection preventionist, Michael S. D. Agus is the co-medical director of the BCU and chief of the division of medical critical care, and Thomas J. Sandora is the co-medical director of the BCU and a pediatric infectious diseases physician. At the time of this writing, Amy Kulma was an RN in the BCU and MICU and Jon Whiting was director of nursing in the MICU; Whiting is now vice president and associate chief nurse of clinical and patient care operations at Boston Children's Hospital. Contact author: Stephanie Heather Kinlay, stephanie.kinlay@childrens.harvard.edu . The authors have disclosed no potential conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise.
Abstract:
Most existing biocontainment units (BCUs) in U.S. hospitals are designed to care for a limited number of patients infected with epidemiologically significant pathogens. The COVID-19 pandemic presented substantial challenges to hospital preparedness and operations because of its high incidence rate and the high risk of transmission to staff members. This article describes a novel practice innovation: a hospital-wide deployment of nurses on a trained BCU team to support hospital staff in safely caring for patients with COVID-19. Their responsibilities included assisting in the development of guidelines and providing training on safety protocols and the appropriate use of personal protective equipment. The authors show how this deployment contributed significantly to staff education and support during the pandemic.
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