Caring About Your Air: Development of an Air Quality Risk Assessment

Session Description: Air quality in healthcare settings is important for patients, staff and visitors. Problems with air quality in these settings can lead to infection and mortality. There is a lack of evidence on assessing the risk of air quality in healthcare settings. In studies where air quality is assessed in healthcare settings, the evidence available stops short of suggesting performing a risk assessment, but suggests the creation of guidelines for air quality without prioritization of risk mitigations. The goal of this project was to identify variables in the healthcare environment that affect air quality and create an air quality risk assessment (AQRA) tool for infection preventionists and industrial hygienists . Creation of an AQRA can help an organization analyze, assess and set priorities.

This session will describe the eight risk categories and subcategories including ventilation system, patient room cleanliness, unit corridor cleanliness, unit support rooms cleanliness, surface finishes, environmental services equipment management, and construction/renovation mitigation that can affect healthcare air quality. It will also describe development of the new risk assessment tool with stakeholders, creating by-in, piloting of the tool, tool revision and changes in hospital systems that occurred as a result of this tool at a single hospital.

A novel AQRA tool was created to assist infection preventionists, industrial hygienists, and other hospital leadership to determine areas of focus for air risk mitigation. This tool can be utilized by healthcare facilities to assess potential risk in a hospital environment and prevent harm to our patients. Using a standardized method for assessment helps prioritize infection prevention efforts.