Aviation firm, 3D printers help protect Wichita health care workers from coronavirus
Just as health care workers are stepping up to help the Wichita community during the coronavirus outbreak, so are members of the community stepping up to help them.
“We’ve seen so many creative ways of people reaching out to see how they can help,” said Carla Yost, chief nursing and quality officer for Ascension Via Christi.
Two especially creative ways are also two of the most crucial. Individuals and companies are working with Via Christi to make hospital-quality face masks and shields.
Even though Via Christi’s infection prevention team has been ramping up to fight the new coronavirus since at least early January, there is a concern that the supply of personal protective equipment for its employees won’t be enough.
“It’s a grave concern nationwide,” said spokeswoman Roz Hutchinson.
There are separate groups helping on the mask and shield manufacturing.
“We’ve got this whole consortium of people,” Hutchinson said.
IPECO, a global company that makes airplane seats at its Wichita facility, is making the masks.
On his own time, Wichita Police Sgt. Teddy Wisely is leading another effort to make face shields with the help of people who have 3D printers.
Yost said the multiprong approach is something to see.
“It’s one of the best collaborations I’ve seen in a very long time.”
‘That could work’
Wisely, who calls himself “just a homegrown nerd,” likes to use technology to help improve business processes at the police department.
At home, he got a 3D printer and began learning about it not long before the coronavirus outbreak started.
Wisely said he read an article on the importance of face shields in helping prevent the spread of the virus and began looking at 3D designs for them, including one created by Czech 3D printing company Prusa.
“They released this design free and open on the market, and now they’re on their third version of it,” Wisely said. “I started printing for friends and family.”
Wisely’s wife is an occupational therapist, and he and she have a lot of friends in public safety.
Wisely, recognizing that so many others will need protection, had an idea to crowdsource making more shields with other 3D printers. He called a friend and asked about print farms, or innovation labs with many printers.
“Word of mouth has helped to grow it.”
Wisely contacted Via Christi to gauge its interest in the shields and ability to help with them.
“I readily thought, you know, that’s something that could work,” said David Alexander, president of the Via Christi Foundation.
He had familiarity with 3D printers. His main skepticism was whether Wisely could find enough willing participants with 3D printers.
“Sure enough, he’s done it.”
Wisely’s initial goal was to make 1,000 shields. With $30,000 in help from the foundation, that goal is now about 7,000. Alexander said 85% of the shields will go to Via Christi, and 15% will go to first responders.
“To us, they’re heroes as well,” he said.
Wisely hopes to soon have 100 printers working on the shields. He has more than 60 now with help from individuals, businesses and colleges in places such as Wichita, Hutchinson and Pittsburg, along with McConnell Air Force Base.
Via Christi assembles the shields, attaches ties to them and handles sterilization.
When Via Christi received the first prototypes of the shields last week, critical care nurses got the first look and were asked for input.
One nurse said, “I think I am going to cry.”
Another one did.
“They were just absolutely overwhelmed,” Hutchinson said.
Alexander said that “a lot of it is the peace of mind” that the shields bring to worried workers.
“I used to think that being brave meant that you weren’t afraid at all,” he said. “I now know that being brave is you do your job even when you are afraid.”
‘Fate aligned’
Much like the shield production, Via Christi’s mask manufacturing is the result of a lot of unexpected things coming together.
“It was kind of like fate aligned,” said Emily Drosselmeyer, critical products manager for the Resource Group, an Ascension subsidiary that handles its supply chain nationally.
Robbi Pierce-Sawyers, Via Christi sterile processing manager, passed along a video she saw on how another hospital repurposes the two-ply spun polypropylene that covers instrument trays to make face masks.
About the same time, Drosselmeyer heard that IPECO quality manager Dwight Boyce had an idea to use the company’s machines to sew the masks while workers aren’t making airplane seats.
“All we knew is we had some capacity and maybe we could help,” said Mike Maracci, IPECO senior vice president and general manager, who is based at the company’s U.S. headquarters in California.
From conception to production, the idea took less than five days to implement.
“It’s just very fortuitous that these things came together,” Maracci said.
Initially, IPECO thought it could produce 250 masks a day.
“We’re trying to move that up,” Maracci said.
He added, though, “When their material runs out, our usefulness runs out.”
Maracci said he’s been impressed at all the worldwide stories of people helping where they can during this pandemic.
“If everybody steps up, before you know it, things get solved.”
When the nurses were shown the new shields, they got a first look at the masks, too.
They “were just so appreciative and so relieved that . . . somebody out there is looking out for their safety,” said Karen Bally, director of infection prevention for Via Christi’s Wichita hospitals.
Bally carries a particular weight on her shoulders right now. She said it’s been in the back of her mind that Via Christi could run out of supplies depending on what happens with the outbreak here, so the extra masks and shields are an extra layer of comfort.
There are other individuals and businesses donating items, such as cleaning supplies, hand sanitizers and protective equipment.
“It’s very humbling that people in this time of need are stepping up to help those that are in need of help,” Bally said.
As Drosselmeyer put it, “It really kind of restores your faith in humanity.”