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Wake Forest Baptist Health Helping To Design Reusable PPE For Health Workers

An Open Standard Industries face mask. Image courtesy: Wake Forest Baptist Health

Wake Forest Baptist Health is taking part in a study to develop better-fitting reusable face coverings for health care workers.

Wake Forest School of Medicine researchers are part of a team effort to design improved personal protective equipment (PPE) products for workers in the healthcare industry.

The hope is that better-designed masks will help protect workers from COVID-19 variants that have already begun to spread in the United States.

The School of Medicine is leading a feasibility study in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Open Standard Industries (OSI), a PPE manufacturer.

Philip Brown is an OSI co-founder and assistant professor at the School of Medicine. Brown says in a news release that clinicians are struggling with ill-fitting disposable masks that don't provide adequate protection. He says the feasibility study will help researchers develop comfortable, reusable N95 masks that will better protect a diverse clinical workforce.

Full enrollment for the study is expected to be complete by the end of May.

For the most up-to-date information on coronavirus in North Carolina, visit our Live Updates blog here. WFDD wants to hear your stories — connect with us and let us know what you're experiencing.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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