Health care workers across the country are in need of more Personal Protective Equipment, or PPE, especially N95 masks.
Thanks to a new emergency-use authorization by the FDA, health care professionals can now safely re-use those masks.
It's a big step towards combating the shortage of masks we are seeing across the country.
Even though Saint Mary’s Hospital in Reno isn’t seeing a shortage yet, this new process will allow medical staff to re-use masks and hold onto the supply that they do have.
"You don't know what's coming through the door next, and you need to quickly don your PPE, so that you can be protected from anything that a patient’s coming in with," said Krystal Flaniken, CNO for Saint Mary's Regional Medical Center.
N95 masks are usually one and done when it comes to health care professionals, and they throw them away after they use them. The CDC recommended extended use, and the FDA just approved a process to decontaminate them for multiple uses.
"It's low temperature sterilization versus a steam sterilization so there is no risk of melting any of the components of the masks. And they set this aside because it essentially decontaminates them, it doesn't sterilize them, and they can be used multiple times," said Zach Thompson, Sterile Processing Supervisor at Saint Mary’s.
The process of cleaning the masks starts with receiving them from health care workers. The masks should have their names and unit on them, as well as a tick mark for how many times the mask has been through the process. It then gets put through a V-PRO Sterilizer Machine, which uses vaporized hydrogen peroxide gas to clean the respirators. The process can be done up to ten times per N95 mask, and officials say it could make a big difference especially if we see a spike in cases.
"Having the ability to bring it down here to decontaminate and reuse for the same provider, it helps us preserve our PPE during this crisis," said Flaniken.
Luckily the V-PRO machine is something that Saint Mary’s already has, and is being used to clean other equipment.
"It's a machine that we use daily on multiple different items, so it's nothing new to us," said Thompson.
Saint Mary’s plans to start up this process on April 16, and other hospitals in the area are looking into similar processes to decontaminate masks.
