While we are adapting to work at home, zooming happy hours, and learning to live with other virtual interfaces, many of us are wondering what else we can do to help our communities. Currently health care professionals are screaming for personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators. You might help connect means with need.

For PPE, Forbes reported last week that a network of 3D printers have been engaged to print PPE including the N95 Mask and DIY Face Mask. See, “Calling All Makers with 3D Printers: Join Critical Mission to Make Face Masks and Shields for 2020 Healthcare Workers,” (Tuesday, March 24, 2020). Hewlett Packard (HP) has posted resources providing software “.STL” 3D printing design files for critical parts to help COVID-19 critical containment efforts (the “.STL” is the file extension created by the computer-aided design (CAD) program used in the 3D modeling process). These 3D “.STL” design files include the 3D printed FDA approved nasal swabs, 3D Printable Face Shield, Budmen Face Shield, Hands-Free 3D-Printed Door Opener and a Mask Adjuster Field Respirator. HP’s website even has a link to help find an HP 3D corporate printing partner. But there are other resources as well. Universities, particularly universities with engineering schools, should have 3D printers these days. These 3D printers should be up to the task of printing N95 masks meeting hospital specifications.

Also, as another example of creative problem solving, Vanderbilt University’s Mechanical Engineering Department and the Vanderbilt University Medical Center teamed up to design an open-source ventilator that can be assembled from locally available materials. This is clever, reliable, but simple technology, with the prototype assembled in three hours, allowing production of 100 ventilators in a single week. That’s 100 ventilators from locally available materials without having to first modify a GM assembly plant. Vanderbilt Mechanical Engineer Kevin Galloway says the goal is to “make the design publicly available so that anyone can replicate it.”  Thanks to the FDA for its March 24, 2020 guidance on FDA’s emergency authority to approve this type of equipment!

The Vanderbilt open-source ventilator design may be ready and publicly available soon, but 3D printers should be available now, particularly in urban areas and universities. While 3D printing resources are likely available, healthcare professionals may not be aware of them. Even if there is some general level of awareness, medical professionals are pretty busy and may need help accessing these resources. If your local healthcare professionals need help, consider reaching out and connecting them with your local university’s 3D printing resources, so the university can begin printing the N95 masks the medical professionals need. It may be enough to simply offer the suggestion.

After you’ve helped source your healthcare professionals with PPE, you could try to keep people from flushing wipes. Not only do wipes shut down wastewater treatment plants. Apparently, once people have used up their wipes, they begin flushing t-shirts. This will be a marathon folks.