Title: Establishing PPE Integrity for N95 Respirators

Team: Emily Kim, Sammy Cheung, Daniel Yang, Rajan Parikh

Client: Pulmonary Medicine – George Su, MD (UCSF)

COVID ICU nurses are constantly in a dangerous environment, exposed to all forms of diseases and ailments, trusting that their personal protective equipment (PPE) will protect them. The COVID-19 outbreak has put greater strain on the manufacturing pathways for PPE and forced hospitals to undergo unprecedented changes in protocols and PPE practices in order to combat this shortage. Although standard issue N95 respirators are only designed for single use, nurses have been saving and reusing their respirators, often for many days at a time. Currently, no formalized manner exists for nurses to determine in real-time if their respirators are failing, except the annual fit testing and seal checks. As a result, they are forced to individually monitor their masks in a non-standardized way, leading to PPE being used for far longer than is safe.

Our unmet need centers on devising a PPE product for ICU nurses that indicates PPE fit failure, enabling users to make informed decisions about when to adjust or change their PPE.