Practice Management Alert

Question: With the pandemic raging, I am pretty sure we are seeing patients who have COVID-19, even though the practice I manage is a specialty practice. How much should we worry about the air in the exam rooms? Should we wait any specific amount of time before bringing the next patient into an exam room?

Pennsylvania Subscriber

Answer: The safety of the air in a confined space depends on a few factors, including the rate of air exchange per hour, whether the previous patient was coughing or sneezing, and whether any aerosol-generating procedures were performed. There is no hard and fast information about the amount of minutes coronavirus aerosols hang around, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but the agency does offer some guidance.

“For a patient who was not coughing or sneezing, did not undergo an aerosol-generating procedure, and occupied the room for a short period of time (e.g., a few minutes), any risk to HCP [healthcare personnel] and subsequent patients likely dissipates over a matter of minutes. However, for a patient who was coughing and remained in the room for a longer period of time or underwent an aerosol-generating procedure, the risk period is likely longer,” CDC says.

Resource: You can find a table of air changes and contaminant removal, as well as the equation used to calculate the figures, at www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/guidelines/environmental/appendix/air.html#tableb1.