With a new post covid awareness around aerosols, we know it’s important to provide safer nebulized treatments that protect healthcare providers, not just the patient. But how do we do that?
I’m sure you are using filters with your nebulizers but do your filters actually protect you and your colleagues from patient’s aerosols?
The question is…
What method makes the most sense in confined spaces when giving aerosolized meds?
During the pandemic, lots of you were forced to come up with creative ways to deal with aerosols to protect yourself, including:
1) Giving a nebulized treatment outside a patient's home prior to transporting them to the hospital.
This takes about 15 minutes. The concern is that this takes an ambulance and crew out of circulation for 15 minutes. The financial implication of this delay alone can be in the hundreds of dollars. More importantly, it further delays getting the patient to the hospital as well as helping other patients.
2) Giving a nebulized treatment in the rig with a mouthpiece system with a filter or using a breath-actuated nebulizer, a BAN.
Numerous mouthpiece nebulizer systems have been developed and even though they have filters, what you’re trying to achieve is often lost.
The problem is that it’s nearly impossible for these to be safe for you and your crew, because it requires that ALL of the patient’s exhaled breath must be exhaled into the mouthpiece and that’s pretty unlikely. Further, we know that handheld mouthpieces have poor compliance with patients forgetting to hold the mouthpiece to their mouth and very often exhaling into the environment. We also know after receiving a treatment a patient with bronchospasm will start to cough when they open up and that cough will surely be around the mouthpiece rendering the filter utterly useless.
And did you know..
Even though the BAN produces less aerosols; it has an outlet valve on the bottom. And through this outlet valve patient pathogens will be expelled!
The take-home message is that without a mouth seal, as in the case with these devices, in my personal opinion, it’s just smoke and mirrors.
So, what now?? We came up with an original solution to address these issues with reverse engineering.
The takeaway?
Most masks protect the wearer of the mask = the patient. But with COVID-19, we need to also be concerned with protecting YOU.
Imagine a nebulizer mask that essentially reverses the concept of most masks.What if there was a nebulizer mask designed to protect the surrounding people from the patient’s exhaled breath while simultaneously allowing the patient to receive treatment?
That’s the concept that we have been working on at AerosoLess Medical. And, it led to the development of the SafetyNeb mask, which is made right here in the USA and became the winner of 2021 EMS World Innovation Award!
The unique features of our SafetyNeb Nebulizer mask are:
1. The viral filters over the vent holes that filter out patient’s pathogens.
2. The faceplate which helps create a tight seal with the patient’s face. So, it’s not just simply the placement of the filters over the vent holes that count, it’s the seal!
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