COVID-19 Frontline Feature - Plant and Maintenance Department

While preparing for the COVID-19 pandemic, the Plant and Maintenance Department at EAMC worked on numerous initiatives in an effort to protect patients and staff.

One of the first initiatives they completed was creating negative pressure rooms, an isolation technique that prevents cross contamination between patient rooms. This project was discussed when it was first discovered that the virus may be airborne. Several members of the Maintenance team installed negative air machines in rooms that would be used by COVID-19 patients to ensure the air was cleaned as it recirculated.

While it was not possible to make the procedure or operating rooms into negative pressure rooms, Maintenance was able to create ante rooms outside of those rooms that would capture the air coming from the room and filter it before it reentered the rooms. Maintenance staff also made a UV light box to place small pieces of contaminated equipment to aid in disinfecting it.

This team also visited COVID-19 treatment areas in the hospital to ensure they were clean for nurses to don (put on) and doff (take off) Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). EAMC was extremely fortunate to have a local company, SiO2, donate several clean room fan filters that worked well for cleaning air units that were shared between COVID-19 treatment areas and other non-COVID areas.

As the inpatient COVID-19 population increased, the need to transport these patients to treatment or procedural areas also grew. In order to transport these patients safely, there was a need for a plan that would ensure transporters, patients and other staff would be safe from exposure. After hearing of an idea from an infection control nurse, the Maintenance staff got to work making 15 stretcher and bed isolation frames with a plastic covering that could be comfortably used by patients in transport. These frames could also easily be transferred from one stretcher or bed to another. These "transport halos" allow COVID-19 patients to be safely transported from one area to another without the risk of exposure.

These efforts, which have been vital in caring for our COVID-19 patients, as well as our staff who cares for them, would not have been possible without the creativity, ingenuity and resourcefulness of the Plant and Maintenance department.