Mrs. Kylie Taylor2, Mrs. Patricia Knight2, Mrs. Sarah Browning2, Mrs. Amy Bernotas2
1HNELHD, Australia, 2NSW Health Climate Risk and Netzero Unit, Sydney, Australia
Biography:
Kylie Taylor
RN, BA, MNP, Grad Cert (Acute Care), Grad Cert ClinEpi
Kylie works as an Infection Prevention and Control Consultant for HNELHD in NSW.
Additional roles include Facilitator for the ACIPC Foundations of Infection Prevention and Control Course and Co-lead IPC Hub for the NSW Net zero initiative.
Abstract:
Background
Disposable gowns and non-sterile gloves (NSG) are key personal protective equipment (PPE) items used to protect healthcare workers from contact with body substances. Adherence is dependent upon a risk assessment, which should be applied as a component of standard precautions. Conversely, mandated use of gowns and gloves for contact precautions continues to be promoted by some lead Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) agencies. This occurs despite a lack of supporting evidence and considerable environmental impacts. Recently, the ‘Gloves off!’ project reduced unnecessary glove use for standard precautions by 29% in a large NSW tertiary hospital, while ‘Gowns Down’ empowered staff to risk assess their use of gowns and gloves for respiratory precautions. ‘Risk assess for PPE success’ expands upon these concepts, promoting standardisation of a risk-assessed approach. Run across two pilot sites, the project aims to reduce unnecessary waste, improve hand hygiene compliance and enhance the capabilities of staff to risk assess use of PPE.
Methods
A range of practical resources have been developed by IPC professionals. This team has redesigned standard and transmission-based precautions door signage, a risk matrix for PPE selection and standardised education for staff regarding when and how to select and use PPE appropriately. Education will be rolled out over a one-month period in May. PPE procurement data, staff knowledge/attitudes and compliance with hand hygiene will be compared pre and post intervention.
Results
This project will run until the end of July in pilot sites with final post intervention analysis results available in August/September 2025.