Virus isolation booths to protect US health workers

A Massachusetts hospital is stepping up efforts to reduce the use of scarce personal protective equipment during coronavirus testing by introducing freestanding isolation booths that enable medical workers to examine patients and collect samples from behind the safety of a plastic panel. Brigham and Women's Hospital adopted and retooled the technology that was originally introduced in South Korea, a country that also initiated drive-through testing for the virus.

Medical workers step into the three-sided booths and slip their arms through portholes into armlength rubber gloves built into the panels to collect samples from patients. The setup keeps nurses and doctors safe from suspected coronavirus patients standing in the open air on the opposite side of the plastic structure.

The structures save time between patients since health workers only need to use the built-in rubber gloves to clean the side of the plastic booth that they came into contact with. The hospital developed the structures after one of its doctors was inspired by more complex booths used in South Korea. Dr. Sherry Yu convinced colleagues that the freestanding booths would help reduce the of disposable personal protective equipment that are already in short supply because of the growing coronavirus pandemic.

Dr. Yu worked with hospital engineers, nurses, fellow physicians and infection control experts to design and build the first unit in about three days, with people involved in the project working about 15 hours each day.

Kevin Giordano is Brigham and Women's Hospital's senior vice president of clinical services, who has spent a lot of time over the past few weeks looking at supplies and how they could best use them. He says the hospital plans to build a total of 10 units and is already in talks with other hospitals  who have asked for design information for use at their facilities.