by trauma nurse coordinators following designation of universal precautions protocol by memorandum to housestaff. Over two months, 81 resuscitations involving 18 house officers (PGY2 and above) were observed. Overall, there was only 16% compliance with strict universal precautions with the most common violations involving barrier techniques (eye wear, ankle and foot protection, and gowns or aprons). For invasive procedures, the compliance improved but still was only 37%. For patients identified as being in a high-risk category, universal precautions were followed in only one of nine cases. In 45 cases, the housestaff were later questioned regarding noncompliance. The reasons most commonly given for noncompliance were not knowing the protocol, forgetting the protocol, and not having time to implement the protocol. In the subsequent two months, another random observation phase was conducted with universal precautions packs being made readily available and trauma nurse coordinators taking a more active role in prompting the use of universal precautions. In this phase, 84 resuscitations involving 21 house officers were observed. Overall compliance increased to 62% and for invasive procedures increased to 67%. It was concluded that active infection control surveillance, ongoing inserviee, advance notice of pending arrival, readily available barrier garments, and prompting are required to improve compliance by housestaff with universal precautions during trauma resuscitations.