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

“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.”

The new solution, created by Gupta and the team at VISE, led by Duke Herrell, professor of urologic surgery and professor of biomedical and mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt, will give clinicians a way to quickly and markedly improve the boxes they already have on hand.