A team of engineers, dentists and doctors from UCLA has begun producing specialized face shields for air-purifying respirators to be used by health care workers during the coronavirus pandemic, the university announced Thursday.
The team expects to produce thousands of the face shields — which fit onto existing air-purifying respirator helmets — during the next few weeks to address a shortage, according to the UCLA team.
“We designed our face shield to function better than the manufacturer’s product, which was in short supply,” said Dr. Joseph Meltzer, medical director of the cardiothoracic intensive care unit at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
“It is less fragile so it can be reused after being cleaned with ultraviolet radiation or solutions such as Clorox, peroxide or soap and water.”
Residents in the UCLA School of Dentistry’s advanced prosthodontics and hospital dentistry post-graduate programs have begun producing the shields in a process involving laser-cutting, water-jetting and die-cutting and uses less than $20 worth of materials.
The shields were approved by UCLA Health leadership for use by its medical staff and tested for function and comfort by 20 health care workers in the intensive care unit, including men and women with different head and face shapes.
The shield’s key components are a clear shield that snaps on to the air purifying respirator helmet and an elastic cuff that seals around the neck, and it easier to put on and take off than existing shields, according to its developers.
Dr. Ben Wu, chair of the division of advanced prosthodontics at the UCLA School of Dentistry, said the testing followed a rigorous review of many parameters, including functional performance, infection control and standardized testing.
The project is among many underway at UCLA seeking to help health care workers, care for patients and to reduce the spread of COVID-19.
Wu and his team have also produced injection-molded reusable face shields, while bioengineering professor Jacob Schmidt and Doug Daniels of the UCLA Library’s Lux Lab collaborated to build thousands of disposable face shields that were assembled by student volunteers at the school.
A graduate student, Glen Meyerowitz, built a low-cost ventilator prototype with commercially available parts.