AHN to reuse N95 masks after using CDC-approved sterilizing process
A hospital worker places several hospital masks in a machine that will sterilize them.
Courtesy of Allegheny Health Network
Hospital staff works to sterilize masks.
Courtesy of Allegheny Health Network
A hospital worker begins the process of sterilizing a mask.
A hospital worker marks a mask that will soon be sterilized.
A hospital worker prepares a mask to be sterilized.
A hospital mask is prepared to be sterilized.
Allegheny Health Network announced Tuesday that it is is extending the lifespan of N95 respiratory masks by using a new sterilization process.
Th process enables the masks to be worn multiple times by caregivers, and will help address the stress that shortages of masks have had on health care providers across the country.
Over the weekend, AHN began sterilizing masks for reuse at each of its nine surgical hospitals, including Canonsburg. The process, recently approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, allows AHN to sterilize thousands of masks per day, and increases AHN’s supply of available N95 respirators for caregivers.
AHN is the first health care organization in the region to implement an N95 reuse program in its novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic response efforts.
“With masks and other kinds of personal protective equipment in short supply, AHN and Highmark Health have been working tirelessly to ensure that our patients are safe and that our clinical employees always have the protective equipment they need,” said Dr. Sricharan Chalikonda, Chief Medical Operations Officer, AHN.
Normally, disposable masks such as N95s are not permitted to be reused. But because of the ongoing supply shortage caused by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA is temporarily authorizing health care providers to sterilize masks for reuse with in-house sterilization equipment that is typically used to sterilize and decontaminate surgical tools and other health care instruments.
But with AHN and most other health systems postponing elective surgeries, those machines are now available for other uses. AHN’s perioperative surgical team and its nursing staff spent the last week designing and implementing a system that would allow the masks to be collected, brought to the hospitals’ central sterilization departments, and redistributed.
“Reusing the N95 respirators produces a number of benefits,” said Hope Waltenbaugh, AHN’s vice president of surgical services. “First and foremost, it prolongs the life of our masks and helps to ensure that our front-line caregivers are always protected. It also cuts down on hospital waste, and potentially opens the door to sterilizing and reprocessing other types of masks, or other forms of personal protective equipment.”
N95 respirator masks reduce exposure to airborne particles, including large droplets and aerosolized particles. They are used in environments where there is high risk of exposure to airborne agents, and are critical for health care workers who are treating or collecting samples from COVID-19 patients.
Once used masks have been delivered to the hospital’s central sterilization department, they’ll be inspected for wear and tear, elastic damage, stains, makeup, or any other imperfection. Damaged masks will be discarded.
Masks that are selected for reuse will then be sealed into sterilizing peel-pack envelopes and loaded into the sterilization machine, which can accommodate up to 40 masks per load. Before the masks are sterilized, they will be tagged with a tape strip, to mark it as a recycled mask.
The N95 masks can be recycled twice before being discarded. AHN hopes it will eventually be able to recycle more than 80% of its N95 masks.
Each load takes about 45 minutes to complete, and each machine can sterilize about 15 loads per day, using hydrogen peroxide vapor. Previous studies conducted by Duke University and others have demonstrated that N95 respirators still meet performance requirements even after 50 decontaminations with this process.
At full capacity, machines across the network could collectively recycle more than 6,000 masks per day. AHN collaborated with Pittsburgh-based MSA Safety to test the performance of the respirators following the sterilization process.