Feasibility of a virtual safety officer in detecting PPE donning and doffing violations

A safety officer (SO) can assist healthcare workers in minimizing respiratory transmission of communicable diseases through verification of compliance with safety protocols, such as appropriately donning and doffing personal protective equipment (PPE). This project sought to determine if observation of PPE donning and doffing for detection of protocol violations by a virtual safety officer (VSO) was a feasible option to improve the safety of the workplace. Five healthcare workers with experience serving as safety officers were enrolled in a feasibility study in which they observed actors donning and doffing PPE in-person and noted errors using a curated checklist for documentation. One month later, the same participants viewed recordings of the in-person sessions and again recorded errors for seven trials. Five hundred and twenty-three responses recorded from the SOs across the in-person and virtual trials aligned 88.7% of the time. SOs were more accurate in the virtual setting than in the in-person setting (87.6% <i>vs</i>. 82.4%, respectively). However, Cohen’s kappa showed lower inter-rater reliability when observing virtually than in-person, especially in the doffing steps of the protocol. A VSO may be a feasible option when assessing whether participants can correctly follow PPE donning and doffing protocols. Future work includes incorporating real-time observation, 360-degree cameras, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR) to increase visualization, thereby increasing inter-rater reliability.