Among the toughest challenges for healthcare organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic has been ensuring the safety of workers in their buildings, from front-line doctors and nurses to facilities and support staff who work behind the scenes. The issue has been high-profile largely due to shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE). Now more attention is focusing on the extent to which the prevalence among hospital staff of hospital-acquired COVID-19 infections.

One recent report analyzed England’s National Health Service Data regarding hospital-acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19, according to Infection Control Today. The report found that hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) are not uncommon, estimated to cause almost one in four hospital COVID-19 cases. The NHS metric considers any COVID-19 case diagnosed eight days or more after admission an HAI.

Information has not been widely available in the United States regarding COVID-19 HAIs. The metric used in the United States is more restrictive than the one used in the United Kingdom. The U.S. metric defines a COVID-19 HAIs as the: “Total current inpatients with onset of suspected or laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 fourteen or more days after admission for a condition other than COVID-19.”

Healthcare decision makers need data to take effective action. They need mandatory reporting of worker and patient acquisition of SARS-CoV-2 and the development of COVID-19 with metrics to provide accurate estimates of cases so they can effectively allocate resources. To further enhance safety, front-line health care workers need better PPE and N95 masks, and hospitals need to increase complete air exchanges and air sanitization. 

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