Delayed Bed Assignment Due to Contact Precautions

Many of us have concerns about contact precautions. The benefits associated with reduced transmission must be balanced against potential side-effects like fewer or shorter visits from their doctors or nurses.  Another issue with isolated patients is that they may be harder to place in long-term care or even acute-care facilities since it is often hard to find single-bedded rooms and time consuming to cohort patients.

With that in mind, investigators at MGH in Boston designed and completed a survey of 1074 patient access managers (the people in charge of bed assignments) to determine the impact that contact precautions has on patient bed placement. They found that MRSA+ patients required a median of 29 more minutes for inpatient bed assignment and VRE+ patients required an additional 28 minutes. Limitations of the study: 22% response rate and self-reported data.

Source: Shenoy ES et al. ICHE 2012