i
Strategies for optimizing the supply of facemasks
-
Nov. 23, 2020
Details:
-
Corporate Authors:
-
Description:Updated Nov. 23, 2020
Once personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies and availability return to normal, healthcare facilities should promptly resume conventional practices.
Audience: These considerations are intended for use by federal, state, and local public health officials; 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 optimize supplies of facemasks in healthcare settings when there is limited supply. It does not address other aspects of pandemic planning; for those, healthcare facilities can refer to COVID-19 preparedness plans.
Surge capacity refers to the ability to manage a sudden increase in patient volume that would severely challenge or exceed the present capacity of a facility. While there are no commonly accepted measurements or triggers to distinguish surge capacity from daily patient care capacity, surge capacity is a useful framework to approach a decreased supply of facemasks during the COVID-19 response. To help healthcare facilities plan and optimize the use of facemasks in response to COVID-19, CDC has developed a Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Burn Rate Calculator. Three general strata have been used to describe surge capacity and can be used to prioritize measures to conserve facemask supplies along the continuum of care.
-
Subjects:
-
Document Type:
-
Collection(s):
-
File Type:
