Major ArticleContact patterns during cleaning of vomitus: A simulation study
Section snippets
Methods
Participants with experience cleaning in health care settings were recruited via e-mail, flyers, and presentations at staff meetings at 2 hospitals in the Chicago area. Participation involved a 2-hour time commitment, and was incentivized with a $40 gift card. The University of Illinois at Chicago Institutional Review Board approved this study (protocol 2015-0990).
Simulations were performed in a room-scale chamber (2.5 m × 4.5 m × 2.4 m high) with sheetrock walls and vinyl tile flooring,
Results
A total of 7 participants were recruited (6 men and 1 woman), and performed 21 trials with simulated vomitus (5 each with the low viscosity on gurney, HG, and low viscosity on floor conditions, and 6 with the high viscosity on gurney condition). Bodily fluid cleaning protocols recommended by the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration involve using an absorbent material
Discussion
We found that during cleaning participants touched the cleaning cart (to obtain and dispose of cleaning supplies) and the gurney (to move the gurney, clean the gurney, and for balance) far more frequently than they touched other surfaces, such as the floor (Table 1). Although this observation was true for all participants, there was substantial variability in the contact patterns between individuals (Fig 1). Participants tended to exhibit similar contact patterns in repeated trials; that is,
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Charline Gooley, superintendent of building Services at the University of Illinois Hospital for providing helpful assistance.
Electronic data tables for this article will be available at time of publication at UIC INDIGO (https://indigo.uic.edu); raw data will be available within 16 months at the same location.
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This work was supported by the CDC Prevention Epicenters Program through cooperative agreement U54CK000445 with the UIC Epicenter for Prevention of Healthcare Associated Infections.
Conflicts of interest: None to report.