Hospital PPEs not up to standard, poses risk to healthcare workers

Karen Haberland, project officer at ECRI, demonstrates how a medical professional puts on a disposable isolation gown.

Disposable gowns designed to deflect the splatter of bodily fluids, used in thousands of hospitals in the United States, have underperformed in recent and ongoing laboratory tests and may fall short of safety standards, leaving healthcare workers with a greater risk of infection than advertised.

A peer-reviewed academic study, published to little notice amid the coronavirus pandemic, found that isolation gowns commonly worn in medical units or intensive care units (ICUs) ripped too easily and allowed about four to 14 times the expected amount of liquid to seep through when sprayed or splashed.