GEORGIA HEALTH NEWS - APRIL 1, 2020

The coronavirus crisis has put unprecedented focus on materials that health care workers use to protect themselves — and patients — from infection.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) is in short supply across the nation. Health care facilities are scrambling to keep gloves, masks, surgical gowns and face shields in stock.

But what about having more medical garb and other materials that can be laundered and reused multiple times? Could that prevent a future PPE shortage?

An Atlanta-based medical laundry company thinks reusables may become more important in the wake of the pandemic.

In the last decade or two, hospitals converted to the use of disposable protective products such as surgical gowns. Most such disposables are made in factories overseas, where labor costs are very low.

Karl Fillip, CEO Emeritus of Novo Health Services, a medical laundry company, says that over time, the firm’s hospital customers replaced reusable gowns with disposable ones.

The American health care industry has come to rely on low-cost disposables as part of normal operations. These goods have been delivered on a “just-in-time” basis, allowing hospitals to keep their stocks low and inventory costs down, Fillip says.

Now, the COVID-19 pandemic — which began in China, where so many disposables are made — has put a strain on PPE supplies at medical facilities worldwide.

“We do believe the entire system would be better off in situations like this with a better mix of reusable products,” says Fillip’s son, Karl II, chief operating officer for Novo. “It simply provides a safer position from a product availability perspective.”

“Traditionally, reusables were touted as a more environmentally friendly alternative to disposables, but this latest crisis also reveals the benefits of reusables from a supply chain and continuity perspective,” says the younger Karl.

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