COVID-19 Testing Sample Acquisition Throughput and Efficiency (HexapodBooth)

Mass General Brigham

Status: Completed

Conditions: SARS-CoV Infection; Covid19; Personal Protective Equipment; Respiratory Viral Infection

Treatments: Other: Personal Protective Testing Booth

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04532411

QI Initiative

Details and patient eligibility

About

This QI project seeks to evaluate the relative test sample acquisition throughput, personal protective equipment utilization, and relative operational costs of provider-administered COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) nasal samples with and with the use of HEPA-filtered, positive pressure isolation booths.

Full description

Beginning in March 2020, the MGH began outpatient testing for COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) utilizing a provider-administered nasal swab samples. This was administered with infection control protocols utilizing full PPE protection for health providers who would don and doff gowns and gloves with each sample acquisition. With an aim to decrease PPE usage and increase efficiency, personal protective booths with HEPA-filtered air called "Hexapods" were employed, after infection control approval, within the MGH system beginning on April 16, 2020.

Ambulatory Care Management at MGH systematically monitors testing completed and PPE usage on a weekly basis. Managers in charge of personnel changes shared necessary team structures and median salaries for different personnel involved with sample acquisition. MGH Materials management were able to report on costs related to consumable supplies used during testing.

In this investigation, this routinely collected data and averaged timed sample collection observations were used to compare before and after the Hexapod utilization.

Enrollment: 28,948 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• All testing performed at designated outpatient SARS-CoV-2 at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) testing sites beginning March 2019.

Exclusion criteria

• SARS-CoV-2 tests performed not performed within designated outpatient testing sites at MGH.
• Testing performed within the hospital for Emergency Department or Inpatient visits.

Trial design

28,948 participants in 2 patient groups

Pre-Booth Testing

Description:

This cohort was comprised of samples acquired as a component of outpatient SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) testing prior to implementation of the Hexapod personal protective booths.

Post-Booth Testing

Description:

This cohort was comprised of samples acquired as a component of outpatient SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) testing after implementation of the Hexapod personal protective booths.

Treatment:

Other: Personal Protective Testing Booth