Strategies for Optimizing PPE Supplies during Shortages

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an increased need for personal protective equipment (PPE), resulting in PPE shortages. This has posed a tremendous challenge to the U.S. healthcare system. Healthcare facilities are having difficulty accessing the needed PPE and are having to identify alternate ways to provide patient care.

CDC’s strategies to optimize personal protective equipment (PPE) is a quick reference that summarizes CDC’s strategies to optimize PPE supplies in healthcare settings and provides links to CDC’s guidance documents on optimizing supplies. These strategies offer a continuum of options using the framework of surge capacity when PPE supplies are stressed, running low, or absent. When using these strategies, healthcare facilities should:

Consider these options and implement them sequentially
Understand their current PPE inventory, supply chain, and utilization rate
Train healthcare personnel on PPE use and have them demonstrate competency with putting on and taking off any PPE ensemble that is used to perform job responsibilities
Once PPE availability returns to normal, promptly resume conventional practices

Please visit Summary for Healthcare Facilities: Strategies for Optimizing the Supply of PPE during Shortages | CDC for more information.

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