TY - JOUR
T1 - Modified full-face snorkel masks as reusable personal protective equipment for hospital personnel
AU - Kroo, Laurel
AU - Kothari, Anesta
AU - Hannebelle, Melanie
AU - Herring, George
AU - Pollina, Thibaut
AU - Chang, Ray
AU - Peralta, Dominic
AU - Banavar, Samhita P.
AU - Flaum, Eliott
AU - Soto-Montoya, Hazel
AU - Li, Hongquan
AU - Combes, Kyle
AU - Pan, Emma
AU - Vu, Khang
AU - Yen, Kelly
AU - Dale, James
AU - Kolbay, Patrick
AU - Ellgas, Simon
AU - Konte, Rebecca
AU - Hajian, Rozhin
AU - Zhong, Grace
AU - Jacobs, Noah
AU - Jain, Amit
AU - Kober, Filip
AU - Ayala, Gerry
AU - Allinne, Quentin
AU - Cucinelli, Nicholas
AU - Kasper, Dave
AU - Borroni, Luca
AU - Gerber, Patrick
AU - Venook, Ross
AU - Baek, Peter
AU - Arora, Nitin
AU - Wagner, Philip
AU - Miki, Roberto
AU - Kohn, Jocelyne
AU - Bitran, David Kohn
AU - Pearson, John
AU - Arias-Arco, Beatriz
AU - Larrainzar-Garijo, Ricardo
AU - Herrera, Cristián Muñiz
AU - Prakash, Manu
N1 - Funding Information:
MP thanks Schmidt Futures, Moore Foundation, Autodesk and CZ BioHub for financial support of the project. Stellar Design, Waymo, Wildhorn Outfitters, Decathlon, and iSnorkel Inc. provided support in the form of salaries for authors DP, SE, GA, QA, and DK, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ?author contributions? section. This has been a large community projects with support from global community including clinicians who have given us feedback throughout. We thank everyone who has engaged with the Pneumask community, especially international community working to build solutions for the current PPE shortage. We thank Schmidt Futures, Moore Foundation, Autodesk and CZ BioHub for financial support of the project. We thank Boston Scientific and Medtronics staff for support in development of injection molding parts and overall consultation. We thank MITRE and Helena for conversations around equitable distribution and members from Pall corporation for discussions around filter efficiency. Map data in Fig 7 is from OpenStreetMap1, is licensed under the Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL) by the OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF). Map rendering was performed with Tableau software, from Tableau Software LLC, and included in this publication with their permission.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Kroo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2021/1
Y1 - 2021/1
N2 - Here we adapt and evaluate a full-face snorkel mask for use as personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care workers, who lack appropriate alternatives during the COVID-19 crisis in the spring of 2020. The design (referred to as Pneumask) consists of a custom snorkel-specific adapter that couples the snorkel-port of the mask to a rated filter (either a medical-grade ventilator inline filter or an industrial filter). This design has been tested for the sealing capability of the mask, filter performance, CO2 buildup and clinical usability. These tests found the Pneumask capable of forming a seal that exceeds the standards required for half-face respirators or N95 respirators. Filter testing indicates a range of options with varying performance depending on the quality of filter selected, but with typical filter performance exceeding or comparable to the N95 standard. CO2 buildup was found to be roughly equivalent to levels found in half-face elastomeric respirators in literature. Clinical usability tests indicate sufficient visibility and, while speaking is somewhat muffled, this can be addressed via amplification (Bluetooth voice relay to cell phone speakers through an app) in noisy environments. We present guidance on the assembly, usage (donning and doffing) and decontamination protocols. The benefit of the Pneumask as PPE is that it is reusable for longer periods than typical disposable N95 respirators, as the snorkel mask can withstand rigorous decontamination protocols (that are standard to regular elastomeric respirators). With the dire worldwide shortage of PPE for medical personnel, our conclusions on the performance and efficacy of Pneumask as an N95-alternative technology are cautiously optimistic.
AB - Here we adapt and evaluate a full-face snorkel mask for use as personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care workers, who lack appropriate alternatives during the COVID-19 crisis in the spring of 2020. The design (referred to as Pneumask) consists of a custom snorkel-specific adapter that couples the snorkel-port of the mask to a rated filter (either a medical-grade ventilator inline filter or an industrial filter). This design has been tested for the sealing capability of the mask, filter performance, CO2 buildup and clinical usability. These tests found the Pneumask capable of forming a seal that exceeds the standards required for half-face respirators or N95 respirators. Filter testing indicates a range of options with varying performance depending on the quality of filter selected, but with typical filter performance exceeding or comparable to the N95 standard. CO2 buildup was found to be roughly equivalent to levels found in half-face elastomeric respirators in literature. Clinical usability tests indicate sufficient visibility and, while speaking is somewhat muffled, this can be addressed via amplification (Bluetooth voice relay to cell phone speakers through an app) in noisy environments. We present guidance on the assembly, usage (donning and doffing) and decontamination protocols. The benefit of the Pneumask as PPE is that it is reusable for longer periods than typical disposable N95 respirators, as the snorkel mask can withstand rigorous decontamination protocols (that are standard to regular elastomeric respirators). With the dire worldwide shortage of PPE for medical personnel, our conclusions on the performance and efficacy of Pneumask as an N95-alternative technology are cautiously optimistic.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85099917664&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85099917664&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0244422
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0244422
M3 - Article
C2 - 33439902
AN - SCOPUS:85099917664
VL - 16
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
SN - 1932-6203
IS - 1 January
M1 - e0244422
ER -