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Armstrong Institute Helps CDC Go Digital with Ebola Guidelines

Overnight, the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality was transformed into something resembling a Silicon Valley technology startup. The usually clean, organized work area was a whirlwind of Post-it notes, video cameras and mobile technology.

12/01/2014
Published in Insight - December 2014

The flurry of activity was in response to a request from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for Johns Hopkins Medicine to lead the effort to create a series of Web-based learning modules to educate health care workers around the country on the proper use of personal protective equipment (PPE) when caring for patients at risk of contracting Ebola virus disease. The deadline for delivery was a scant five days.

The CDC wanted short step-by-step video clips to supplement the guidance on the safe use of PPE. An interactive component would enhance learning by allowing users to personalize their training and select the type of respirator and attire they wear.

“People are visual learners,” says Ayse Gurses, a human factors engineer and patient safety faculty member with the Armstrong Institute. “To be efficient and effective, information must be presented contextually and visually to engage health care workers and help them retain the information.”

Participants worked in teams to look at the procedures for donning and doffing—putting on and taking off—PPE from multiple viewpoints. “To pull this off, we needed human factors engineers, cognitive psychologists for the teamwork piece, anthropologists and sociologists for how people work together, and instructional designers and technology people to build it,” says Peter Pronovost, director of the Armstrong Institute.

After review and discussion, the team identified where problems could occur in the processes and then drafted scripts. From there, the group relocated to a production studio, where the actors rehearsed and then went on camera. The result of the extraordinary collaboration—“Ebola Preparedness: PPE Guidelines”—is now available on the CDC’s website and iTunes U.

“The product we produced for the CDC is critically important,” says Pronovost. “But the bigger lesson here is what’s powerful and what’s possible when you bring diverse groups of people together from the government, the private sector and the public sector who can work together to solve these really big problems that our country and the world face.”

As seen in the 2016 Biennial Report. Learn more.