Addenbrookes Air Disinfection Study - AAirDS
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Addenbrooke’s Air Disinfection Study - Implementation of air disinfection to prevent hospital acquired infections on medicine for older people wards: A pragmatic controlled before-and-after study.
IRAS ID
299336
Contact name
Victoria Keevil
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and The University of Cambridge
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 3 months, 1 days
Research summary
Hospital acquired infections (HAI) can complicate admission episodes for patients admitted with other medical problems, prolonging length of stay and sometimes leading to confusion, falls and even death. During the COVID-19 pandemic HAIs have received increased attention due to a significant minority of all COVID-19 infections being acquired in hospital.
It is likely that many HAIs are transmitted through the air from patient to patient. Good ventilation of indoor spaces can help reduce this transmission but is not always possible. Other environmental interventions such as air disinfection units (ADUs) may be required. We hypothesise that installing high efficiency particulate air filters combined with integrated ultraviolet-C lamps, one type of ADU, can reduce the number of HAI on medicine for older people wards.
To test this, we propose to compare the numbers of HAIs 12 months before and 12 months after ADU installation on our wards. We will contrast the trends observed with those on similar wards where no ADUs are installed. This will help us understand if installing ADUs helps reduce the number of infections patients acquire in hospital. Although this is a quasi-experimental study, it is entirely observational. We are taking advantage of both variation in the availability of ADUs on our hospital wards and large-scale access to de-identified routinely collected healthcare data, available via our hospital’s electronic health record.
The study will also evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of installing ADUs on busy wards, using questionnaires given to a sample of staff and patients. Additionally, air and surface sampling will be conducted on wards with and without ADUs to look for evidence of important bacteria, fungi and viruses in the ward environment and assess air quality.
This will represent the first comprehensive study of ADU implementation on medicine for older people wards, with the aim of reducing HAIs.
REC name
South West - Central Bristol Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
22/SW/0010
Date of REC Opinion
12 Jan 2022
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion