title: Variation in health care worker removal of personal protective equipment.
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.
authors.affiliation: William S. Middleton Veterans Hospital and Section of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI.
authors.forename: Caroline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zellmer
authors.affiliation: William S. Middleton Veterans Hospital and Section of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Van Hoof
authors.affiliation: William S. Middleton Veterans Hospital and Section of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI. Electronic address: ns2@medicine.wisc.edu.
authors.forename: Nasia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Safdar
mesh_terms: D019983:Guideline Adherence; D006282:Health Personnel; D006801:Humans; D017053:Infection Control / Q000379:methods*; D000067393:Personal Protective Equipment; D011361:Professional Competence
keywords: Emerging pathogens; Healthcare associated infection