Cureus Personal Protective Equipment N95 Facemask Shortage Quick Fix: The Modified Airway From VEntilatoR Circuit (MAVerIC)

[tetano]

Cureus


. 2020 May 1;12(5):e7914.
doi: 10.7759/cureus.7914.
Personal Protective Equipment N95 Facemask Shortage Quick Fix: The Modified Airway From VEntilatoR Circuit (MAVerIC)


David Convissar ¹ , Lorenzo Berra ² , Marvin G Chang ¹ , Edward A Bittner ³



Affiliations

• PMID: 32440384
• PMCID: PMC7237167
• DOI: 10.7759/cureus.7914

Abstract

We are in a crisis where healthcare providers on the frontlines are running out of the appropriate personal protective equipment including N95 masks and power air-purifying respirators. Here, we propose a makeshift filter mask that we call the Modified Airway from VEntilatoR Circuit (MAVerIC) that can be assembled within seconds using widely available supplies routinely utilized by anesthesia providers in the operating room to provide practitioners on the frontlines with the high standard of protection of a N95 mask during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and can be easily quantitatively "fit tested" to ensure no significant leak to optimize safety and efficacy.

Keywords: coronavirus; covid-19; facemask; facemask shortage; healthcare worker safety; n-95 mask; n95 mask; patient safety; personal protective equipment; ppe shortage.



Copyright ? 2020, Convissar et al.