This consensus statement by the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) and the Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine (AMDA), the Association for Professionals in Epidemiology and Infection Control (APIC), the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA), the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (PIDS), and the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists (SIDP) recommends that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination should be a condition of employment for all healthcare personnel in facilities in the United States. Exemptions from this policy apply to those with medical contraindications to all COVID-19 vaccines available in the United States and other exemptions as specified by federal or state law. The consensus statement also supports COVID-19 vaccination of nonemployees functioning at a healthcare facility (eg, students, contract workers, volunteers, etc).

ABSTRACT IMPACT: This study is designed to address a critical gap in our understanding of how aging patients and caregivers recognize and respond to clinically important changes in heart failure symptoms during vulnerable transitions. OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Research on family involvement in heart failure (HF) symptom response is limited. Our objective is to examine HF symptom monitoring processes in couples after HF hospitalization, and quantify how coupled symptom assessments predict symptom response, patient clinical events, care strain, and dyad health during the high-risk post-discharge period. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: This is an ongoing T2 translational study that employs an intensive longitudinal design. Adults aged ≥65 years hospitalized for HF and their caregiving spouse/partner are enrolled. The target n is 48 dyads. Over 5 weeks of follow-up, dyads complete daily diaries assessing patient HF symptoms. Clinical biomarkers of HF severity (NTproBNP, ST2) are also collected. Primary study endpoints are dyads’ HF symptom response behaviors and caregiver strain; secondary endpoints are dyads’ health status and patient clinical events. Dyadic dynamics of symptom assessment will first be characterized using dyadic autoregressive time series models. Subsequently, we will extract cross-partner effect parameters from the time series models and test whether dyadic effects predict the trajectories of each of our endpoints. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: This study is currently underway. In line with our study hypotheses, we anticipate that couples who assess patient symptoms similarly (dyadic agreement), and whose symptom assessments accurately reflect clinical severity, will be more likely to respond to symptoms appropriately with lower stress to the caregiving partner, and have better trajectories of health (self-reported and clinical). Characterizing dyadic symptom dynamics will provide important insight into the day-to-day process of symptom recognition in couples. Further, quantifying dyadic symptom dynamics in relation to our endpoints will provide information on the clinical value of dyadic symptom agreement, and whether it might be a target for future interventions to support better symptom response and health outcomes for both dyad members. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF FINDINGS: This project innovates on existing paradigms by applying family-level theory and techniques to better understand and support interventions for couples during post-discharge HF transitions - a vulnerable period for older adults that has traditionally been studied almost exclusively at the patient-level, with marginal success.

We surveyed emergency department and urgent care clinicians to assess patterns of use and perceived usefulness of a local antibiotic stewardship application to deliver institution-specific prescribing guidance. Among 114 eligible respondents, the application was widely utilized, and it was perceived to be a useful clinical resource that improved prescribing.

We implemented a cleaning process for mobile patient equipment (MPE) and determined its success using adenosine trisphosphate (ATP) monitoring and data feedback. Following education for staff and ATP data feedback, the data suggest that the MPE cleaning program we implemented was successful.

Smartphones are increasingly used to access clinical decision support, and many medical applications provide antimicrobial prescribing guidance. However, these applications do not account for local antibiotic resistance patterns and formularies. We implemented an institution-specific antimicrobial stewardship smartphone application and studied patterns of use over a 1-year period.

We evaluated the appropriateness of antibiotic prescriptions for acute sinusitis and pharyngitis. Overall, 81% of antibiotic prescriptions for acute sinusitis were inappropriate and 48% of antibiotic prescriptions for pharyngitis were inappropriate. Types of prescribing errors differed between the 2 infections, including lack of an indication for antibiotics and excessive duration in ~50% of sinusitis cases and incorrect antibiotic dose in ~33% of pharyngitis cases.

Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2018; 0, 1–3

UK Biobank is an open access prospective cohort of 500 000 men and women. Information on the frequency of consumption of main foods was collected at recruitment with a touchscreen questionnaire; prior to examining the associations between diet and disease, it is essential to evaluate the performance of the dietary touchscreen questionnaire. The objectives of the present paper are to: describe the repeatability of the touchscreen questionnaire in participants (n 20 348) who repeated the assessment centre visit approximately 4 years after recruitment, and compare the dietary touchscreen variables with mean intakes from participants (n 140 080) who completed at least one of the four web-based 24-h dietary assessments post-recruitment. For fish and meat items, 90 % or more of participants reported the same or adjacent category of intake at the repeat assessment visit; for vegetables and fruit, and for a derived partial fibre score (in fifths), 70 % or more of participants were classified into the same or adjacent category of intake (κweighted > 0·50 for all). Participants were also categorised based on their responses to the dietary touchscreen questionnaire at recruitment, and within each category the group mean intake of the same food group or nutrient from participants who had completed at least one web-based 24-h dietary assessment was calculated. The comparison showed that the dietary touchscreen variables, available on the full cohort, reliably rank participants according to intakes of the main food groups.

Observational studies compare outcomes among subjects with and without an exposure of interest, without intervention from study investigators. Observational studies can be designed as a prospective or retrospective cohort study or as a case-control study. In healthcare epidemiology, these observational studies often take advantage of existing healthcare databases, making them more cost-effective than clinical trials and allowing analyses of rare outcomes. This paper addresses the importance of selecting a well-defined study population, highlights key considerations for study design, and offers potential solutions including biostatistical tools that are applicable to observational study designs.

Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2016;1–6

Although dietary intake over a single 24-h period may be atypical of an individual’s habitual pattern, multiple 24-h dietary assessments can be representative of habitual intake and help in assessing seasonal variation. Web-based questionnaires are convenient for the participant and result in automatic data capture for study investigators. This study reports on the acceptability of repeated web-based administration of the Oxford WebQ – a 24-h recall of frequency from a set food list suitable for self-completion from which energy and nutrient values can be automatically generated. As part of the UK Biobank study, four invitations to complete the Oxford WebQ were sent by email over a 16-month period. Overall, 176 012 (53 % of those invited) participants completed the online version of the Oxford WebQ at least once and 66 % completed it more than once, although only 16 % completed it on all four occasions. The response rate for any one round of invitations varied between 34 and 26 %. On most occasions, the Oxford WebQ was completed on the same day that they received the invitation, although this was less likely if sent on a weekend. Participants who completed the Oxford WebQ tended to be white, female, slightly older, less deprived and more educated, which is typical of health-conscious volunteer-based studies. These findings provide preliminary evidence to suggest that repeated 24-h dietary assessment via the Internet is acceptable to the public and a feasible strategy for large population-based studies.

Surgical site infection (SSI) surveillance methods vary among infection preventionists. An online survey regarding SSI surveillance technique was administered to infection preventionists and linked to superficial and complex colon SSI rates. Higher superficial but not complex SSI rates were reported when more SSI surveillance techniques were used (P <.0001).

Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2015;00(0): 1–3

Surgical site infection (SSI) surveillance techniques for colon surgery and hysterectomy among Colorado infection preventionists were characterized through an online survey. Considerable variation was found in SSI surveillance practices, specifically varying use of triggers for SSI review, including laboratory values, healthcare personnel communication, and postoperative visits.

Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2014;00(0): 1–3

Skin preparation products contribute to surgical site infection (SSI) prevention. In a case-control study, diabetes was associated with increased SSI (adjusted odds ratio [OR], 5.74 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.22–27.0]), while the use of chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG) plus isopropyl alcohol versus CHG alone was found to be protective (adjusted OR, 2.64 [95% CI, 1.12–6.20]).

Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2014;35(12):1535–1538