The PreVent Project

Outbreaks of COVID-19  happened in cloistered environments including nursing homes, cruise ships, and prisons. Papers out of Wuhan state that the virus-containing aerosols can linger in the air for hours, contaminate everything in the room and even get out of the room. Health workers in nursing homes and hospice are under the risk of infection because they are accepting ill patients. The existing method for stopping spread of the virus is to wear face masks and keep distance, however, it is not effective enough for certain situations. 

We are developing a personal fume hood with an air filtration system. It creates an enclosed space around the patient’s head that allows the doctors to operate on the patient safely.  Our solution would be widely applicable worldwide, and we expect it to change policy makers’ mind about health workers’ safety.

As of 6/15/2020, there are 5,175 cases of COVID-19 in Cuyahoga County, OH, and 79,000,924 cases worldwide. The nursing homes in the US have been the hardest hit, as of 5/31/2020, there are 95,515 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in nursing homes and 31,728 COVID-19 deaths happened in nursing homes. By comparing with nation wide data, it shows that  1 out of 3 of all US COVID-19 deaths are nursing home residents or staff, and 1 out of every 5 new cases in NY originated from nursing homes. 

There are several factors that contributes to high infection rate in nursing homes:

1. High population density.

2. Nursing home residents are vulnerable.  

3. Shortage of PPE 

Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, many hospitals in the US have to make room for COVID-19 patients with acute syndrome, moving some of the patients to other care facilities like nursing homes. Some nursing homes are worried about this decision because of the underlying risk of infection. We are proposing a solution that can provide a clean and safe environment in nursing homes and other care facilities, to solve the problem that health workers are at risk

We are developing a personal “fume hood” that contains and HEPA-filters any COVID aerosols produced by a patient, creating a safe and cleaner care environment for caregivers, residents, and patient families. 

Our product will:

• Protect caregivers, fellow residents, and visiting family

• Covers head of patient to contain and neutralized any aerosolized virus produced 

• Low cost, non-traditional sourced suction and HEPA filter for clean negative pressure 

• Fit-for-Purpose Enclosures

• Plugged in while stationary/ Battery powered during transport

The device will be built with mostly transparent material, covering the patient’s head and shoulder, and there will be a powered ventilation unit with an air filtration system. When turned on, a negative pressure will be created inside the “fume hood”, to prevent virus-containing aerosols from escaping into the air. HEPA filters will be effective for filtering air and keep the coronavirus inside the fume hood. 

The primary target population of our solution are nursing homes, patients and their families. Under the pandemic of COVID-19, conflicts have arisen between nursing homes and hospitals. Because of shortage of beds and equipment, some hospitals have to discharge patients who no longer need acute care and make room for critically ill patients. Some patients with symptoms are sent to long term care facilities like nursing homes, this might be an alternative for hospital, but it could lead to outburst of COVID-19 infection in nursing homes, which has happened in many states. For nursing homes, they need a solution to minimize the risk of COVID-19 infection.

Because of the high infectivity of COVID-19, family members/visitors were not allowed to touch, hug or even closely visit the patients, and a lot of patients were dying alone. We believe our product will shorten the distance between patients and their family members/friends, and provide emotional support for everybody who is experiencing this pain.

Solve’s 2020 Global Challenges’ goals include preventing the spread of COVID-19 and protecting health workers. We are focusing on two major problems under the pandemic: 1. Outburst of COVID-19 in cloistered environments (for example, nursing homes). 2. Health workers are at risk dealing with COVID-19 patients. 

Our solution is to develop a personal fume hood that filters harmful aerosols produced by COVID-19 patients. We believe with combination of other PPE, our solution will effectively provide a cleaner environment in hospitals and nursing homes to stop the spread of COVID-19 and protect the health workers. 

Ideally, doctors would like to put every potential COVID patient in a Negative Pressure Room, because these rooms act like a “fume hood”, keeping everything harmful inside of the “hood”.  But these rooms are expensive to build/convert, and not every room can be converted.  In addition, the caregivers themselves may be carrying the virus in and out of the room, unless they are abiding by stringent donning and doffing procedures. many of these “uncontrolled” care environments in post-acute care, the absence o

Our approach is to make the safety and control of negative pressure more accessible to these “uncontrolled” care environments that cannot accommodate the negative pressure room approach, for one reason or another.  Our “negative pressure micro-environments” keeps the room and room air cleaner, making accessible a third way to prevent the spread of infection and reduce the devastating effects being heavily reliant on distancing as a tool.  In fact, in many ways, we are enabling socialization, allowing safer contact.

3 Full Time Staff

8 Part Time Professional Contributors

3 Interns

Cleveland's strong healthcare ecosystem provides many exposure points to the entire continuum of care.  Because of our partnership with UH Ventures, we are able to collaborate with doctors and research leaders at University Hospitals of Cleveland, Hospice of Western Reserve, and Case Western Reserve University.

JT Tan brings a decade of product management and new value creation to keep product development customer centric and recruit resources to keep the project moving forward.  Kate Hart keeps all of our engineering and manufacturing contributions pulling in the same direction, and G Kim ensures user needs we continue to learn are reflected in our prototyping.

Our clinical supporters include Dr. Rodney Folz, Chief of Critical Care at University Hospitals, and his team, as well as Drs. Beth McLaughlin and Kevin Dieter at the Hospice of Western Reserve.

We are currently locally partnered with University Hospitals Ventures and Hospice of Western Reserve, as well as with Case Western Reserve University's maker space - ThinkBox.