BACKGROUND:

Fear surrounds Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) because it is highly infectious. Yet members of the Serious Communicable Diseases Unit (SCDU) at Emory University Hospital (EUH) had to overcome that fear when caring for patients with EVD.

PURPOSE:

The analysis reported here illustrates how the members of EUH's SCDU tacitly enacted high reliability (HR) principles while caring for patients with EVD.

METHODS:

A qualitative study was conducted to describe the experience of members of the EUH SCDU who worked with EVD patients in 2014. We completed 17 semi-structured interviews involving registered nurses, physicians, and support personnel (eg, laboratory technicians). Interview recordings were transcribed and analyzed using conventional content analysis. Exploring HR principles was not among the questions guiding this exploration, but the participants repeatedly described concepts related to HR.

RESULTS:

The goal of the SCDU team was to save patients' lives while protecting their own lives. Rigorous training and meeting high standards were required to make the team. The fear surrounding EVD set in motion the enactment of HR principles. HR principles served to alleviate failures or breakdowns in infection prevention and control, thus keeping patients and staff safe.

CONCLUSIONS:

These findings illustrate that it is possible to move HR principles from theory to practice in high-risk situations. HR principles were essential to safety and to infection prevention and control.