Protocol for VIVALDI social care: pilot study to reduce infections, outbreaks and antimicrobial resistance in care homes for older adults

Authors: Krutikov, Maria ;

Fry, Zoe;

Azmi, Borscha;

Lezard, Charlotte;

Thorn, Katie;

Patefield, Gareth;

Childe, Graeme;

Hudson, John;

Stirrup, Oliver ;

Jhass, Arnoupe;

Turner, Nicola ;

Cassell, Jackie A.;

Flowers, Paul ;

Hayward, Andrew C.;

Copas, Andrew J.;

Green, Martin;

Shallcross, Laura

Source: NIHR Open Research

Full text

: https://doi.org/10.3310/nihropenres.13530.1

Abstract

Care home residents are vulnerable to severe outcomes from infections such as COVID-19 and influenza. However, measures to control outbreaks, such as care home closures to visitors and new admissions, have a detrimental impact on their quality of life. Many infections and outbreaks could be prevented but the first step is to measure them reliably. This is challenging in care homes due to the lack of data and research infrastructure. During the pandemic, the VIVALDI study measured COVID-19 infections in residents and staff by partnering with care providers and using routinely collected data. This study aims to establish sentinel surveillance and a research database to enable observational and future interventional studies in care homes. The project has been co-produced with care providers, staff, residents, relatives, and researchers. The study (October 2023 to March 2025) will explore the feasibility of establishing a network of 500-1500 care homes for older adults in England that is underpinned by a linked data platform. No data will be collected from staff. The cohort will be created by regularly extracting resident identifiers from Digital Social Care Records (DSCR), followed by pseudonymisation and linkage to routinely collected datasets. Following extensive consultation, we decided not to seek informed consent from residents for data collection, but they can ‘opt out’ of the study. Our goal is to be inclusive, and it is challenging to give every resident the opportunity to ‘opt in’ due to cognitive impairment and the requirement for consultees.

Rights

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Cite as

Krutikov, M., Fry, Z., Azmi, B., Lezard, C., Thorn, K., Patefield, G., Childe, G., Hudson, J., Stirrup, O., Jhass, A., Turner, N., Cassell, J., Flowers, P., Hayward, A., Copas, A., Green, M. & Shallcross, L. 2024, 'Protocol for VIVALDI social care: pilot study to reduce infections, outbreaks and antimicrobial resistance in care homes for older adults', NIHR Open Research, 4(4). https://doi.org/10.3310/nihropenres.13530.1

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3310/nihropenres.13530.1

Repository URI: https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/90350/