Management of donations of personal protective equipment in response to the massive shortage during the COVID-19 health crisis: providing quality equipment to health care workers

Abstract

Background: In the COVID-19 pandemic context, a massive shortage of personal protective equipment occurred. To increase the available stocks, several countries appealed for donations from individuals or industries. While national and international standards to evaluate personal protective equipment exist, none of the previous research studied how to evaluate personal protective equipment coming from donations to healthcare establishments. Our aim was to evaluate the quality and possible use of the personal protective equipment donations delivered to our health care establishment in order to avoid a shortage and to protect health care workers throughout the COVID-19 crisis.

Methods: Our intervention focused on evaluation of the quality of donations for medical use through creation of a set of assessment criteria and analysis of the economic impact of these donations.

Results: Between 20th March 2020 and 11th May 2020, we received 239 donations including respirators, gloves, coveralls, face masks, gowns, hats, overshoes, alcohol-based hand rubs, face shields, goggles and aprons. A total of 448,666 (86.3%) products out of the 519,618 initially received were validated and distributed in health care units, equivalent to 126 (52.7%) donations out of the 239 received. The budgetary value of the validated donations was 32,872 euros according to the pre COVID-19 prices and 122,178 euros according to the current COVID-19 prices, representing an increase of 371.7%.

Conclusions: By ensuring a constant influx of personal protective equipment and proper stock management, shortages were avoided. Procurement and distribution of controlled and validated personal protective equipment is the key to providing quality care while guaranteeing health care worker safety.

Keywords: COVID-19; Crisis management; Healthcare quality improvement; Healthcare workers; Infection control; Personal protective equipment; Safety culture.

Fig. 1

Evolution of donations collected at the University Hospital of Poitiers. Donations collected from 20th March 2020 to 11th May 2020; (missing data n = 40 donations (16.7%); data expressed as n

Fig. 2

Distribution of the types of donations received. Data expressed as n and percentages

Fig. 3

Evaluation of the five main types of donations received. Data expressed as n and percentages