This webpage shares resources to help reduce the impacts to healthcare during an infectious disease outbreak or pandemic. It includes ways to prolong existing supplies while still offering the most protection available to workers.

woman wearing hair cover, eye protection, and mask under a face shield

Table of Contents

Overview

Pandemics happen when new viruses emerge which can infect people easily and spread from person to person in an efficient and sustained way. Pandemics can place extraordinary demands on public health and health care systems as well as on essential community services. Healthcare providers and hospitals may be overwhelmed, and there may not be enough medical supplies to meet demand.

Resources

People wearing personal protective equipment walking down a hallway in a healthcare facility

Series of strategies to conserve supplies of personal protective equipment in healthcare settings

Inventory closet and shelves filled with personal protective equipment and healthcare supplies

Facilities can use this tool to calculate their average PPE consumption rate or “burn rate”

Ventilated Headboard

Guidance for using and building ventilated headboards

hospital bed with wheels on a blue floor

Guidance for using portable HEPA filtration systems to create expedient patient isolation rooms

two hands placing a bandage on an arm

Safe and proper sharps disposal during a mass vaccination campaign

Sharps disposal container hanging on a wall

Strategies to conserve sharps disposal containers during supply shortages



Content Source:

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health