P.R.I.D.E- Preventing Respiratory Infectious Disease Exposures: An Improvement Project in a Northern Californian Emergency Room

Cole, Jennifer; Gambone, James; Barnard, Emily

BACKGROUND: P.R.I.D.E is a performance improvement project to reduce the incidence of occupational health exposures among healthcare workers (HCW). This project encouraged registered nurses to quickly identify and isolate potentially infectious patients in the emergency room, to prevent exposures to airborne and droplet transmitted communicable diseases, including meningitis, tuberculosis (TB) and measles. METHODS: This pre and post-intervention model implemented a quasi-experimental designed project in the emergency room (ER). The Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) empiric transmission-based isolation precautions were implemented to prevent occupational health exposures. Eighty registered nurses (RN's) received education on the new intervention. The assumption of this project was, the new process will decrease occupational health exposures. RESULTS: Eight ER RNs reported an occupational health exposure, pre-intervention in quarter 2 of 2019, compared to zero occupational health exposures, post-intervention in quarter 3 of 2019. A Chi- square independence test was used to determine if the categorical variables of the capstone intervention and disease exposure were related in the same RN population. An association between the capstone intervention and disease exposure was observed, X2 (1) = 8.421, p=0.004, indicating the result is statistically significant. CONCLUSION: The P.R.I.D.E project effectively reduced occupational health exposures to airborne and droplet transmitted diseases in the emergency room by 100%. These results should encourage Infection Preventionists to adapt the CDC empiric transmission isolation precautions in their emergency rooms and urgent cares to prevent airborne and droplet transmitted disease exposures.