Conserving supplies of personal protective equipment in healthcare facilities during shortages

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Description:
  Pandemics happen when new viruses emerge which can infect people easily and spread from person to person in an efficient and sustained way. Pandemics can place extraordinary demands on public health and health care systems as well as on essential community services. Healthcare providers and hospitals may be overwhelmed, and there may not be enough medical supplies to meet demand. This webpage shares resources to help reduce the impacts to healthcare during an infectious disease outbreak or pandemic. It includes ways to prolong existing supplies while still offering the most protection available to workers.
  
  This resource shares strategies or options to conserve supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) in healthcare settings when there is limited supply. Shortages can happen due to increased use and demand, or supply chain disruption.
  
  Audience: These considerations are intended for use by federal, state, and local public health officials, respiratory protection program managers, leaders in occupational health services and infection prevention and control programs, and other leaders in healthcare settings who are responsible for developing and implementing policies and procedures for preventing pathogen transmission in healthcare settings.
  
  Purpose: This document offers a series of strategies or options to conserve supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) in healthcare settings when there is limited supply due to increased use and demand (e.g., as may occur during an infectious disease pandemic or epidemic) or supply chain disruption. Consideration of some contingency and crisis capacity strategies may also require authorization by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or enforcement discretion by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
  
  
• Subjects:
  COVID-19 Health Facilities Health Personnel Pandemics Personal Protective Equipment SARS-CoV-2
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Webpage
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:na
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:721fbbb98b8cb73465624761b61e12547015d9c4134bac0d5a61a8d8bcec424debad04cb546163e182e8392aa98584d46c7289dcb45c0e1dd753d2f539f75f17
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/128418/cdc_128418_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 563.18 KB ]