Covering for Operations during Viral Emergency Response (COVER)

With over 40 million surgical and non-surgical procedures performed each year, hospitals have addressed the need for the occasional isolation of patients during emergency and operating room procedures over concerns with infection or viral exposure. While flu season patients will always be a cause for concern, the Covid-19 pandemic overwhelmed hospital isolation rooms and has caused hospitals to cancel procedures due to onboarding of contagious patients, ultimately losing revenue. This has elevated the need for technology that limits viral spread and protects both the patient and care teams. Negative pressure rooms are designed to prevent spread, but hospitals have a limited number of rooms, and they do not prevent contamination of health care workers inside. There is currently no way to make the rooms portable, scalable, or adaptable for various clinical environments. To combat this problem, Clemson University researchers, along with healthcare workers from PRISMA Health have developed a novel, portable, negative pressure hood prototype that will protect both patients and staff. The personal, portable negative pressure environment will be a life-saving device on par with a portable defibrillator.
John DesJardins
Delphine Dean
2020-063