Although the CDC has issued guidelines for keeping infected patients in isolation in special rooms, hospitals need to determine how big that room should be, he said. “Do I put the patient in a single room, or in a larger space that could accommodate laboratory equipment and medical care?”

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, officials are in the process of training a team of nurses who would monitor all personnel going into and out of an infected person’s room to make sure they are following procedures for wearing and taking off protective gear.

Some health-care workers around the country have expressed concern about whether the facilities where they work haven’t provided sufficient training to handle Ebola patients.

“They have these protocols and policies in place, but they don’t actually make it down to the level where the nurse is providing that care,” said Deborah Burger, a registered nurse in California and co-president of National Nurses United, the largest nurses union in the country.