We have now trained out Ebola team which is about 40 nurses and 10 – 20 doctors preparing to care for an ebola patient in an ICU. Our BSL3 folks from campus did the training, 16 hours a day for about 10 days.  Only 2/3 of the participants “passed” the training and graduated demonstrating proficiency and at the level the BSL3 trainers were comfortable with.  I can get you in touch with our BSL3 lab director if you want. The ICU room we have designated has an anteroom and a private bathroom and is a negative pressure room and we also are setting up the next door room for staging. The waste volume and processes are a big challenge.  Warner

 

 

 

Hi, all, from my perch far away from the reality of daily work in hospitals, some questions

 

1.       Have any of you practiced the guidance on ppe doffing with a buddy, discarding doffed gear, and moving waste without contaminating yourselves and are clearly successful?  Has that worked in  the traditional anterooms of Airborne Infection Isolation Rooms? 

2.       Has anyone worked to create or had to create an alternative floor plan, using neighboring rooms?  Creating doorways?

3.       Has anyone figured out how much waste they really produce taking care of a sick patient?

4.       Has anyone addressed the local sterilization / autoclaving approach and requirements?

 

Eager to hear if they have and would love to chat by phone

 

If there’s interest, I’m happy to create a phone conference to address this  (for people who don’t remember, from 1999 to 2012 I was a very active member of this group withoepraitonal responsibility for ht eVHA health care system in employee health matter though I’m now at a different agency.  This agency is in compliance assistance mode, including in Dallas, not in enforcement mode)

 

 

Michael

 

Michael J. Hodgson, MD, MPH

Chief Medical Officer and Director, Office of Occupational Medicine

Occupational Safety and Health Administration

Department of Labor

200 Constitution Ave, NW Rm 3457

Washington DC 20210