Developing best practices for PPE Portraits across 25 sites: a systematic assessment of implementation and spread of adaptations using FRAME

BACKGROUND: Adaptation, a form of modification that aims to improve an intervention’s acceptability and sustainability in each context, is essential to successful implementation in some settings. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, clinicians have rapidly adapted how they deliver patient care. PPE Portraits are a form of adaptation, whereby health workers affix a postcard size portrait of themselves to the front of their personal protective equipment (PPE) to foster human connection during COVID-19. METHODS: We used the expanded framework for reporting adaptations and modifications to evidence-based interventions (FRAME) method to better understand the reasoning behind and results of each adaptation. We hypothesized that using the FRAME in conjunction with design-thinking would lead to emerging best practices and that we would find adaptation similarities across sites. Throughout multiple implementations across 25 institutions, we piloted, tracked, and analyzed adaptations using FRAME and design thinking. For each adaptation, we assessed the stage of implementation, whether the change was planned, decision makers involved, level of delivery impacted, fidelity to original intervention, and the goal and reasoning for adaptation. We added three crucial components to the FRAME: original purpose of the adaptation, unintended consequences, and alternative adaptations. RESULTS: When implementing PPE Portraits across settings, from a local assisted living center’s memory unit to a pediatric emergency department, several requests for adaptations arose during early development stages before implementation. Adaptations primarily related to (1) provider convenience and comfort, (2) patient populations, and (3) scale. Providers preferred smaller portraits and rounded (rather than square) laminated edges that could potentially injure a patient. Affixing the portrait with a magnet was rejected given the potential choking hazard the magnetic strip presented for children. Other adaptations, related to ease of dissemination, included slowing the process down during early development and providing buttons, which could be produced easily at scale. CONCLUSIONS: The FRAME was used to curate the reasoning for each adaptation and to inform future dissemination. We look forward to utilizing FRAME including our additions and design thinking, to build out a range of PPE Portrait best practices with accompanying costs and benefits. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-021-06922-2.