Medline University Expands Resources to Support Frontline Healthcare Workers Respond to COVID-19 Public Health Emergency

Personal protective equipment (PPE) like N95 masks, eye protection, gloves and gowns continue to gain greater attention as the number of COVID-19 patients continues to soar. In response, Medline University (MU) is now offering multiple resources to help frontline healthcare workers across the continuum of care.

In partnership with HealthStream, MU will offer a collection of carefully-curated courses relevant to COVID-19. These courses are designed to educate staff on current guidelines for infection control across various care settings and precautions for airborne pathogens. We also offer best practices for using personal protective equipment (PPE) and maintaining proper hand hygiene.

“Depending on the type of personal protective equipment being used, the process for donning and doffing can differ, so you want to understand the process for your specific PPE and you want to make sure you are completely covered to ensure your protection,” says Dr. Rosie Lyles, director of clinical affairs at Medline. “As we are now fighting SARS-CoV-2, a virus that causes COVID-19 disease; it poses many challenges to both healthcare workers and the community, we must take advantage of the most up-to-date educational resources to make sure we follow best practices to ensure we can keep ourselves healthy and available to treat patients.”

Additional Resources:
In addition to the release of educational resources through Medline University, Medline has also developed a COVID-19 Toolkit to provide healthcare organizations with useful information to maintain a safe and healthy workplace. The toolkit features links to information and resources as well as access to printable posters that facilities can easily share to reinforce best practices and keep infection prevention top of mind.

Using PPE is not the only challenge frontline healthcare workers face in treating patients with COVID-19; getting PPE is also a challenge. Healthcare supply chains have been under tremendous stress since factories in the Hubei province of China, which supply 60% of global PPE, shut down in January. Today, some are seeing signs that supply may begin to rebound after factories began re-opening earlier in March.

Last week Medline began air freighting in face masks after manufacturing restarted in China, improving manufacturing-to-dock time by about 3-4 weeks per shipment vs traditional shipping times. In addition to working through supply challenges in China, Medline is also ramping up production of reusable face masks and gowns manufactured in Latin America and is working to source additional manufacturing capabilities worldwide.

Beyond PPE, Medline is helping fill the gap on hand sanitizer as demand exceeds 300 percent of traditional inventory levels. Medline plans to redeploy its manufacturing capabilities in Hartland, Wis. to produce an estimated 150,000 bottles a week by mid-April.

Stay up-to date on the latest information regarding COVID-19 by visiting our COVID-19 newsroom page and COVID-19 Toolkit.