Collaborative project from VU and VUMC improves intubation box safety for COVID-19 caregivers

As hospital and health care staff across the country continue learning more about the transmission and spread of COVID-19, caregivers for coronavirus patients continue adapting to the changing needs and best practices for personal protective equipment (PPE). 

Now, a new collaborative project from clinicians at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering (VISE) aims to solve one of these critical equipment challenges with a simple, low-cost retrofit solution that improves the safety of intubation boxes.

The intubation box, a four-sided fabricated enclosure used during endotracheal intubation, helps shield a caregiver from being exposed to COVID-19 by containing droplets expelled by the patient during the procedure. 

“At the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, there was a lot of interest around a specific box design that proved effective at containing droplets emitted by patients during intubation,” said Rajnish Gupta, associate professor of anesthesiology at VUMC. “This design gained rapid interest around the world as a means to improve safety. But since, we’ve also learned that these boxes do not offer sufficient protection against aerosols.”