title: Respiratory Protection Toolkit: Providing Guidance Without Changing Requirements-Can We Make an Impact?
abstract: International travel and infectious respiratory illnesses worldwide place health care workers (HCWs) at increasing risk of respiratory exposures. To ensure the highest quality safety initiatives, one health care system used a quality improvement model of Plan-Do-Study-Act and guidance from Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) May 2015 Hospital Respiratory Protection Program (RPP) Toolkit to assess a current program. The toolkit aided in identification of opportunities for improvement within their well-designed RPP. One opportunity was requiring respirator use during aerosol-generating procedures for specific infectious illnesses. Observation data demonstrated opportunities to mitigate controllable risks including strap placement, user seal check, and reuse of disposable N95 filtering facepiece respirators. Subsequent interdisciplinary collaboration resulted in other ideas to decrease risks and increase protection from potentially infectious respiratory illnesses. The toolkit's comprehensive document to evaluate the program showed that while the OSHA standards have not changed, the addition of the toolkit can better protect HCWs.
authors.affiliation: University of Cincinnati EAMRNRN@aol.com.
authors.forename: Elizabeth Ann
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Bien
authors.affiliation: University of Cincinnati.
authors.forename: Gordon Lee
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Gillespie
authors.affiliation: University of Cincinnati.
authors.forename: Cynthia Ann
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Betcher
authors.affiliation: Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.
authors.forename: Terri L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Thrasher
authors.affiliation: Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.
authors.forename: Donna R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Mingerink
mesh_terms: D006282:Health Personnel; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D017053:Infection Control / Q000379:methods*; D019570:Inhalation Exposure / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000592:standards; D016273:Occupational Exposure / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000517:prevention & control*; D016272:Occupational Health; D058996:Quality Improvement; D012134:Respiratory Protective Devices / Q000592:standards*; D012141:Respiratory Tract Infections / Q000517:prevention & control*; D017751:Safety Management / Q000379:methods*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Act (PDSA); Do; Plan; Study; quality improvement