Two U.S. healthcare facilities that successfully treated patients with Ebola recently shared some key strategies for limiting exposure risk to patients and staff in an article on the Health Facilities Management website.

The serious communicable disease unit (SCDU) at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta was established in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Air in the rooms is under negative pressure, with all airflow going from the hallway to the anterooms to the patient rooms. Also, air in the rooms has a laminar flow across the patient bed to reduce contamination risks.

One aspect of the SCDU that changed from the original design was the location of the lab equipment, which was placed inside a biosafety cabinet in the anteroom. The staff decided that no diagnostic specimens of any kind would leave the unit for testing.

The Nebraska Biocontainment Patient Care Unit at the Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, developed a strategy to convert Category A waste into Category B medical waste to enable safe disposal. The unit transferred all solid waste to a pass-through autoclave system for sterilization. Autoclaved waste was placed in biohazard bags and into rigid packaging for disposal as Category B medical waste.

Liquid waste produced by patients with Ebola was disposed of into a toilet with hospital-grade disinfectant and held for 2.5 times the recommended time before flushing. 

Read the article.