Topic Collection: COVID-19 Personal Protective Equipment Resources

The speakers provide an overview of the "Surge Roadmap" and related COVID-19 patient management strategies.

This frequently updated page hosts patient management protocols and resources for medical professionals caring for COVID-19 patients. Topics include care protocols and guidelines (general, venous thromboembolism, renal replacement therapy, radiology and imaging, and ethics, palliative, and end-of-life care), personal protective equipment, and telemedicine (training, policy and implementation guides, and technology support).

These online guidelines systematically review the evidence related to eight COVID-19 infection prevention practices and grade recommendations as strong, conditional, or a knowledge gap. Related guidelines are available for treatment and management and diagnostics.

This webpage indicates the types of personal protective equipment that should be worn, and testing undergone by residents, visitors, and various staffing roles in long term care facilities under contingency standards of care for COVID-19.

This document from 4/10/2020 details personal protective equipment (PPE) considerations for first responders to protect against inhalation, ocular, and dermal exposures to SARS-CoV-2; donning, use, and doffing considerations; cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting considerations; decontamination and disinfection procedures and considerations for vehicles, apparatus, and fire stations; and waste management considerations.

This video demonstrates the personal protective equipment doffing process under Massachusetts General Hospital's strict isolation policy. It uses a combination of airborne isolation, contact isolation, and eye protection to protect healthcare workers caring for patients known or suspected to be infected with highly pathogenic organisms transmitted by the airborne route or direct or indirect contact with the patient, environmental surfaces, or contaminated equipment. Diseases covered under this policy include SARS, MERS, avian influenza, and 2019 Novel Coronavirus.

This video demonstrates the personal protective equipment donning process under Massachusetts General Hospital's strict isolation policy. It uses a combination of airborne isolation, contact isolation, and eye protection to protect healthcare workers caring for patients known or suspected to be infected with highly pathogenic organisms transmitted by the airborne route or direct or indirect contact with the patient, environmental surfaces, or contaminated equipment. Diseases covered under this policy include SARS, MERS, avian influenza, and 2019 Novel Coronavirus.

This door sign and accompanying instructions describe precautions to be taken when caring for a patient with COVID-19.

This video demonstrates donning and doffing techniques for personal protective equipment appropriate for use with COVID-19.

This Excel-based calculator allows healthcare facilities and other workplaces to enter the quantity of their current stock of various types of personal protective equipment (PPE) and calculate an average consumption rate (burn rate). Based on the burn rate, they can estimate their remaining PPE supply. The PPE Tracker app allows healthcare facilities to calculate their remaining supply of personal protective equipment based on current inventory levels and their burn rate.

This plan outlines recommendations to reduce use of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the context of expected shortages and outlines the resource request process within the state.

This page features a brief instructional video and link to download a calculator to estimate daily personal protective equipment (PPE) use, which can help providers better manage distribution of PPE resources.

This page includes a flowchart and other tools to help healthcare facilities select respirators.

This toolkit contains various resources to support safe, continued operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials include electronic device and eye protection cleaning and disinfection guidance, personal protective equipment ensemble posters, a log for staff entering COVID-19 patient rooms, and signage on visitor restrictions and infection prevention.

This site has multiple links to help healthcare facilities and staff optimize their personal protective equipment (PPE), with specific guidance on the usage of gowns, masks, eye protection, and N95 respirators, PPE decontamination procedures, and responses to frequently asked questions.

This plan outlines recommendations to reduce use of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the context of expected shortages and outlines the resource request process within the state.

This concise guide can help healthcare organizations plan and implement personal protective equipment (PPE) preservation strategies and includes information on ways to obtain new PPE supplies, either from commercial vendors or through state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) jurisdictions or through federal channels.

This clinical evidence assessment reviewed laboratory studies and found that most supported prioritizing N95 extended use over reuse. The report provides background on N95 respirators including information on their regulation, extended use and reuse and associated risks, complementary conservation measures, alternatives to single-use N95 respirators, and actions taken in response to the N95 respirator shortage during the COVID-19 pandemic; summarizes clinical guidelines and recommendations; reviews clinical literature; and includes links to additional resources and references.

This fact sheet highlights personal protective equipment (PPE) preservation strategies in non-healthcare settings and how to acquire PPE for essential critical infrastructure workers. It also provides key questions and answers for those making PPE requests.

This toolkit is designed to aid any organization that uses personal protective equipment (PPE) with planning and implementing preservation strategies. It provides estimates of the value of implementing preservation actions to reduce (use of), to reuse, or to repurpose PPE, in conventional, contingency, or crisis capacity conditions.

This document from 4/10/2020 describes a phased approach to risk management for first responders based on the availability of respiratory personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors summarize a debate among infectious disease practitioners in Singapore regarding whether surgical masks or N-95 respirators should be recommended for health care workers caring for patients with MERS-CoV. They conclude that the evidence supports MERS-CoV being transmitted through droplets, except for aerosol-generating procedures, and so surgical masks are sufficient. They contend that it is more protective for health care workers to consistently wear surgical masks, than inconsistently wear N-95s. N-95 masks have previously been found to be uncomfortable and cause headaches and impaired mental function in health care workers after prolonged use. (Note that the CDC recommends N95s be used for suspect MERS-CoV in the U.S.)

This page includes a flowchart and other tools to help healthcare facilities select respirators.

The authors of this article suggest that universal masking of healthcare workers should be considered. They identify care of patients with unrecognized COVID-19 and asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic healthcare workers with COVID-19 as two potential disease transmission scenarios that may be addressed by universal use of masks by all healthcare workers in conjunction with appropriate use of other personal protective equipment and infection prevention measures.

This report examines strategies for and pros and cons related to stockpiling and reusing elastomeric respirators during an influenza pandemic or other large aerosol-transmissible outbreak.

Considering only the particulate filter efficiency of respirators, this page provides the results of limited assessments of international respirators conducted by the National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory (NPPTL).

This webinar is part of a series conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on July 7, 2020 and addresses the decontamination of N95 respirators for healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic when they may be in short supply. The webinar is accompanied by slides available at the following URL: https://www.fda.gov/media/139774/download. For additional information on this webinar series, visit: https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/workshops-conferences-medical-devices/webinar-series-respirators-health-care-personnel-use-during-covid-19-pandemic-07212020-07212020.

This report summarizes the history of masks and respirators available to healthcare workers, other workers, and the general public; acceptance and willingness to use them; and ways to encourage the development and use of new devices. The authors offer eight recommendations for federal action.