Quality Improvement Tool to Rapidly Identify Risk Factors for SARS-CoV-2 Infection among Healthcare Workers

Marmor, Michael; DiMaggio, Charles; Friedman-Jimenez, George; Shao, Yongzhao

The rapid growth of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, limited availability of personal protective equipment, and uncertainties regarding transmission modes of the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus - 2 (SARS-CoV-2) have heightened concerns for safety of healthcare workers (HCWs). Systematic studies of occupational risks for COVID-19 in the context of community risks are difficult and are only recently starting to be reported. Ongoing quality improvement studies in various locales and within many affected healthcare institutions are needed. We propose a template design for small-scale quality improvement surveys. Such surveys have the potential for rapid implementation and completion, are cost-effective, impose little administrative or workforce burden, can reveal occupational risks while taking into account community risks, and can be easily repeated with short intervals of time between repetitions. We describe a template design and propose a survey instrument that is easily modifiable to fit the particular needs of various healthcare institutions in the hope of beginning a collaborative effort to refine the design and instrument. These methods, along with data management and analytic techniques, can be widely useful and shared globally. Our goal is to facilitate quality improvement surveys aimed at reducing the risk of occupational infection of healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.