Do computer keyboards pose a contamination risk in an Antenatal Day Unit?
Infection Prevention and Control Assignment
Do computer keyboards pose a contamination risk in an Antenatal Day Unit?
BACKGROUND and RATONALE:
Within the Antenatal Day Unit (ANDU) of a large northern hospital a new paper-less system of medical notes has meant that at each hospital bedside there is a laptop on wheels known as a ‘wizard on wheels’ (‘WOW’). The day unit will see on average between 20-30 women each day in an open ward of 4 beds so each WOW will be used by up to 3 midwives daily to obtain and retain the medical information of between five and eight women. The use of computers within the healthcare system is ever increasing and recent studies have looked at the role of contaminated keyboards as a source for transporting hospital infections (Codish 2015, Ide 2019, Messina 2011). The women seen on the ANDU are largely healthy and well and are in hospital for chronic pregnancy related conditions. This evidence review is to discern whether the laptop computers pose an infection control risk to the women being seen in the unit.
SEARCH STRATEGY
The search terms used in the literature search were “infection prevention” OR
“infection control” AND “computer equipment” OR “keyboard”. Limits were set to the last 10 years so only the most recent research was included to reflect contemporary practice, and only peer reviewed journals were reviewed to ensure higher quality evidence was included. Publication type included academic journals, and limits also included English language for ease of reading . The search was not limited to the maternity setting as it was felt this would narrow the search, as keyboard contamination is relevant throughout different healthcare setting. An initial search was conducted using the Discover search engine to access main university databases, and then further searches were conducted using the health literature data bases – CINAHL complete and MEDLINE . The local NHS Trust guidelines and NICE guidelines were also searched.
Further inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to include papers to include only those papers whose sole purpose was to study keyboard contamination to focus the search but also to limit the number of results due to time constraints.
Abstracts were reviewed, and studies of interest found in the reference list of the articles were also read even if they fell outside the limits of the initial strategy. The search resulted in 15 relevant studies and these ranged in quality from a systematic review and a randomised controlled trial to lower quality case-controlled and cross-sectional studies.
FINDINGS:
Leander et al (2009) in their prospective, observational, time-interrupted study
found that keyboards have been shown to serve as reservoirs for multidrug-resistant microorganisms and Hayden (2008) states that healthcare workers play a significant role in the transference of these pathogens, which can survive for days to months, from clinical surfaces to the immediate patient environment.
