News
Hospital's newest weapon against infection is duct tape -- it works fine, and saves money
Kaiser Health News
In one year, infection specialists saved a Midwest hospital system $110,000 and 2,700 staff hours — by using duct tape.
That effort at Trinity Medical Center, a group of four hospitals in the Quad Cities area of Illinois and Iowa, involved helping staff deal more efficiently with patients who had to be isolated because of serious infection risks.
The Infection Prevention Team at Trinity discovered that marking a 3-foot-by-3-foot floor space with duct tape at the entrance of the patient’s room saved nurses and other staff members time and resources because staying in that area meant they didn’t have to scrub each time they came in and out of the room. What’s more, both patients and medical staff reported that they were able to effectively and easily communicate while using the designated space, called the red box.
Janet Nau Franck, a registered nurse and independent consultant at Trinity, recently published a study describing the effort in Prevention Strategist, a quarterly publication of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).
“The original intent was compliance” with state laws that set standards for dealing with isolated patients with infectious disease, Franck says. When she came to Trinity two years ago, officials there had already started the red box system, but she helped study whether it was working.
Traditionally, doctors and nurses are required to wash their hands and don hospital gowns, gloves and mask before entering the room of an isolated patient. At Trinity, medical practitioners inside the taped area are not required to wear the hygienic attire, but once they step out of that area and approach the patient, they must wear the gloves, mask and hospital gown. What Franck and the rest of the infection prevention team found was that by eliminating the scrub-down and gowning process before entering the room, practitioners and patients were satisfied and still complied with hygienic standards.
