Background: Understanding the structures and processes related to the supervisor performance of regulated nurses (registered nurses [RN] and registered practical nurses [RPN]) is critical in order to discern how administrators of long-term care (LTC) homes can facilitate and better support nurses given their important contribution to nurse assistants' job satisfaction and resident outcomes.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused personal protective equipment shortages worldwide and required healthcare workers to develop novel ways of protecting themselves. Anesthesiologists in particular are exposed to increased risks of contamination when performing interventions such as airway manipulations. We developed and tested an aerosolization protective device which contains aerosols around the patient’s airway and helps eliminate particles using negative pressure. This intubation box is a polymethyl methacrylate prism with openings for gloves, integrated suction and ventilation connectors. We conducted a randomised controlled series of tests to detect 0.5 µm particles after a simulated cough inside the intubation box, using a high-fidelity simulation mannequin.
Setting and main outcome
: We measured particle concentrations inside the box with and without suction turned on, in both negative and positive pressure operating rooms. We also obtained particle concentrations outside our box and compared them to non-airtight barrier devices. One minute following simulated cough, the mean number of particles per cubic foot in our box with suction on is around 45% that with the suction off (1,462,373 vs 3,272,080, P < 0.0001) in the negative pressure room, and four times lower than with the suction off (760,380 vs 3,088,700, P < 0.0001) in the positive pressure room. After a simulated cough inside the box, particles can be detected in front of the anesthesiologist’s face with a non-airtight device, while none are detected when our box is sealed and its suction turned on. The use of our negative pressure intubation box prevents contamination of surroundings and increases particle elimination, regardless of room pressure.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.