W
ith critical shortages of personal
protective equipment during the
pandemic and a manufacturing
industry that can't keep up with the
staggering demand from healthcare organizations,
leaders of outpatient surgical facilities are using
nimble and unorthodox thinking to ensure their
staffs have the gear they need to protect them-
selves and their patients.
• Smart ordering strategies. The pandemic
made "normal" purchasing practices all but obso-
lete. Some facilities ordered the same amount of
PPE, regardless of case volume. "Looking back, one
thing we did right was to continue ordering the
same amount of PPE during the period when we
were only performing cases that were deemed
emergent," says Greg DeConciliis, PA-C, CASC,
administrator at Boston Out-Patient Surgical Suites,
Waltham, Mass. "That allowed us to build up a good
supply for when we reopened."
The idea came from the facility's PPE vendor, an
invaluable resource Mr. DeConciliis says facility
leaders should lean on during the pandemic.
Keeping abreast of the trends in other countries
and making critical purchasing decisions early on
helped some facilities weather the storm.
"We realized well before the virus hit the U.S.
that the supply chain would most likely be affected
due to the virus shutting down areas of China —
where the vast majority of our supplies were manu-
10 • S U P P L E M E N T T O O U T P A T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • J A N
U A R Y 2 0 2 1
Proven Strategies for Managing PPE
Facilities are getting creative to maintain adequate levels
of personal protective equipment despite nationwide shortages.
CRISIS LEVELS The CDC permits the limited reuse of N95 masks when conventional strategies are not enough to maintain adequate supply levels.
Yale
New
Haven
Health
Adam Taylor | Senior Associate Editor
