Innovation at a Children’s Hospital: Personal Protective Equipment Efforts During the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected life for everyone, and hospitals, in particular have been hard hit. In this study, we describe our efforts to develop personal protective equipment at a children’s hospital early in the pandemic. We convened an innovation working group to organize our efforts and respond to the rapidly changing situation. We describe our work in four areas: (1) plexiglass shields for the emergency department, (2) face shields for clinical providers, (3) breath shields for ophthalmology, and (4) flip-up safety glasses for nurses. The hospital’s supply chain is now caught up with addressing many pandemic-related shortages. Nevertheless, through our multidisciplinary approach to reacting to the pandemic’s urgent needs, we demonstrated agility to bring stakeholders together to maximize the use of scarce resources and build resiliency. We believe this method can be rapidly replicated as future needs arise.