Back

Protecting Healthcare Workers, Part 2

4 Steps to Minimize Infections in Healthcare Workers

👉 Read Part 1: Infection: An Occupational Hazard for Healthcare Workers

Healthcare Staff in Lobby

Public health experts agree: Healthcare workers face significant exposure risks on the job, and hospitals must take aggressive action to prevent pathogen transmission.

To keep staff safe, healthy, and operating at full capacity, healthcare facilities can implement these four critical steps:

1. Disinfect the Air

Healthcare professionals are constantly exposed to airborne pathogens whenever infected patients cough, sneeze, vomit, talk, or breathe.

While infectious patients can be isolated from other patients during an outbreak, they cannot be separated from the medical teams caring for them. Consequently, hospitals must disinfect shared air.

While traditional HEPA filtration traps airborne microbes, it does not destroy them, allowing pathogens to colonize on filters. Furthermore, poorly maintained HVAC ventilation systems can become vectors for airborne infection rather than a defense.

Proven Pathogen Destruction with Continuous Air Disinfection

To overcome these limits, leading European healthcare facilities deploy Novaerus portable air disinfection units featuring NanoStrike™ technology. Proven to destroy airborne pathogens on contact, this technology is safe for continuous 24/7 operation around staff and patients in surgical theaters, ERs, ICUs, and patient rooms.

“We saw a 46% reduction in staff sickness within the first year… We had happier and healthier patients and staff.”

— Gerard McEntee, Assistant Director of Nursing, Leopardstown Park Hospital

When Dublin’s Leopardstown Park Hospital installed Novaerus units in selected care wards, the results were immediate:

  • Reduced Absenteeism: Staff sick days fell by 46% compared to untreated wards.
  • Lower Staffing Costs: Agency staffing reliance plummeted, cutting overhead and staffing friction.
  • Outbreak Prevention: Over three years, wards with Novaerus units recorded zero outbreaks of MRSA, C. difficile, influenza, or norovirus.
  • Odor Control: Airborne odor molecules were eliminated alongside active pathogens.

As Dr. László Urbán, Director General of Hungary's Mátrai Gyógyintézet hospital, noted after deploying 68 units: “Infection rates dropped, bad odors were eliminated, and doctors and nurses felt noticeably protected entering isolation rooms.”

2. Encourage Staff Flu Vaccination

Healthcare workers face elevated seasonal influenza exposure, and vaccinated employees miss significantly fewer workdays than unvaccinated peers.

Yet across many European healthcare systems, fewer than 30% to 40% of healthcare workers get vaccinated annually. Fear of adverse reactions, perceived low susceptibility, and skepticism regarding vaccine efficacy remain major hurdles. Hospitals must proactively educate staff to dismantle these misperceptions.

3. Emphasize Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

Proper, consistent use of PPE—gloves, gowns, masks, respirators, goggles, and face shields—is essential for lowering infection rates. Hospitals must enforce strict guidelines and provide seamless access to protective gear at every point of care.

4. Improve Hand Hygiene Compliance

Stricter adherence to hand hygiene dramatically lowers infection transmission. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that global hospital hand hygiene compliance is under 40%.

Despite posters, videos, reprimands, and reward campaigns, proper hand hygiene remains notoriously difficult to maintain due to basic human behavior:

  • Technique Flaws: Studies show staff frequently miss the backs of hands and wrists, touch dispenser surfaces with contaminated fingers, or attempt to sanitize wet hands.
  • Knowledge Gaps: Research indicates many providers do not know every specific clinical trigger requiring mandatory sanitization.
  • Subconscious Behavior: A Swiss study found that busy healthcare workers deposit potentially harmful microbes onto patients or surfaces every 4 seconds—largely due to unconscious actions while multitasking.

“It is time to rethink our approach and combine existing strategies with new technology.”

— Prof. Dr. Ojan Assadian, President of the Austrian Society for Infection Control

A Layered Defense: Air, Hands, and Surfaces

While hospitals must continue reinforcing hand washing, vaccination, and surface cleaning, behavioral solutions have clear limits. To comprehensively protect healthcare workers from occupational infection, hospitals must complete their safety protocol by adopting continuous air disinfection technology.