Identifying asymptomatic healthcare workers with COVID-19 in a community hospital: an institution’s experience

Abstract

The outbreak related to SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19 has been classified as a pandemic. Many healthcare institutions enacted policies to limit the spread within their facility. As hospitals begin to return to normal particularly with elective procedures, a common concern is how an organization should react in the event that healthcare workers test positive for COVID-19. When our organization had a cluster of positive inpatient healthcare workers, we elected to test all direct patient care healthcare workers. Through this process we learned two valuable lessons that have redefined our practice: 1) the recognition that aggressive contact tracing provides greater yield than testing everyone and 2) organizations must implement effective social distancing both within each department and how departments interact with each other to limit the scope of contract tracing.

Facility-Based Surveillance Activities for COVID-19 Infection and Outcomes among Healthcare Workers in a Nigerian Tertiary Hospital

“…12 During the COVID-19 pandemic, various surveillance strategies have been adopted to detect HCW infection including voluntary or mandatory self-monitoring and reporting of symptoms among HCWs; institution of diagnostic testing for symptomatic HCWs and periodic testing among frontline workers managing confirmed COVID-19 cases even when asymptomatic; and contact tracing. 1,4,10,13 Irrespective of the strategy used, defining the risk of an HCW being infected with SARS-CoV-2 which causes COVID-19 is often the first step in selecting the most appropriate approach for monitoring and evaluation. 10 Risk categories for inhospital exposures depend on the type of contact that has taken place, whether PPE was used consistently and appropriately, presence during aerosol-generating procedures, and level of distancing from patients with COVID-19.…”

Hand Trauma and Reconstructive Microsurgery during the COVID-19 Emergency in the Marche Region (Italy): What Has Changed?

“…Patients scheduled for surgery within 24 h of suffering trauma only underwent RT-PCR examination. The pharyngeal swab performed with these procedures was necessary for primary screening in order to be able to subject a patient to surgery with the appropriate preventive measures for the operating theater staff and the spread of infection in case they tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 [16][17][18]. All these procedures, although intended to ensure a safe working environment and patient safety, weighed heavily on the hospital workflow, and, despite this, most patients received the necessary surgical treatment with quality standards comparable to those of the pre-COVID-19 period.…”

An Effective Mechanism for the Early Detection and Containment of Healthcare Worker Infections in the Setting of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review and Meta-Synthesis

“…Table 1 shows the main characteristics of the 38 studies, including the basic publication information, study type, relevant effective monitoring measures in the COVID-19 context (syndromic surveillance, testing, contact tracing and exposure management), and summary results. With duplicates (repeated count), 11 of the included studies discussed syndromic surveillance measures [6,11,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]; 28 studies discussed approaches of testing [3,6,11,22,23,26,27,; 16 studies discussed measures of contact tracing and exposure management [6,11,17,18,[22][23][24][25][26]28,36,47,[50][51][52][53].…”

“…Efficient testing enables the rapid identification and isolation of infected HCWs, which not only prevents onward transmissions, but also ameliorates staff shortages due to unnecessary quarantines [15,16]. Nevertheless, researchers have also pointed out that aggressive contact tracing usually provides a greater yield than mass testing [17,18]. Based on the specific contact scenario, the risk of exposure is subsequently assessed, so that appropriate measures can be taken accordingly [11].…”