standardization of equipment placement within and across facilities , and improvements of organizational safety climate .”
HFE and the Physical Environment
Pennathur and Herwaldt ( 2017 ) say that HFE can be applied when physically designing the care environment : “ The physical environment can substantially affect healthcare workers ’ ability to implement good infection prevention measures and the physical environment itself can limit or enhance the risk of transmission . For example , healthcare workers participating in focus groups conducted by Lavender , et al . noted that hand hygiene products were often placed in inconvenient or in inconsistent locations and some patient rooms did not have sinks that staff could use . In addition , numerous outbreaks of organisms such as the coronavirus that caused Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ( SARS ), Pseudomonas aeruginosa , and Legionella pneumophila , in healthcare facilities have been associated with faulty design . To help prevent outbreaks and cross transmission to individual patients , persons designing new healthcare facilities or renovating and maintaining existing facilities must ensure that the physical spaces and facility design and maintenance efforts facilitate infection prevention efforts . For example , the design team must ensure that the materials used for surfaces such as walls , floors , furniture , and equipment can
be cleaned and disinfected adequately such that environmental contamination and the risk of cross transmission are minimized .”
For example , Trudel , et al . studied how the design of products and the environment could undermine infection prevention efforts . They found multiple defective designs including high touch / contact items that were difficult to clean and maintain ( e . g ., door handles ), spaces and objects that required “ physical and cognitive effort to navigate , use or maintain ,” ( e . g ., surfaces or equipment that could be cleaned only if healthcare workers contorted their bodies ), and designs that did not remind staff when and how to perform specific infection prevention measures .
The size and physical layout of a patient room determines how many patients can be cared for safely in the space and how effectively healthcare workers can navigate the space . Several studies have suggested that roommates of patients infected or colonized by organisms such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus , vancomycin-resistant enterococci , or Clostridium difficile are at higher risk than other patients of acquiring these organisms . A review by Ulrich , et al . found that HAI rates were usually lower in single-patient rooms than in multi-patient rooms , that single-patient rooms are easier to clean , and that single rooms with a conveniently located sink or alcohol-gel dispenser may facilitate hand hygiene compliance compared with multi-bed rooms , where it is easy to
The physical environment can substantially affect healthcare workers ’ ability to implement good infection prevention measures and the physical environment itself can limit or enhance the risk of transmission .”
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