The Science of Safety: Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) that saves lives

Resumen

Background. Health, as a human fundamental right, implies not only guaranteeing access to attention but to create the ideal conditions for the interaction between healthcare providers and patients. Within this context, the sanitary environments play a key role to ensure quality and efficacy in healthcare services which represents an ongoing challenge when it comes to controlling the risks to which healthcare providers and patients are exposed plus preventing nosocomial infections and crosscontamination among different areas. Hence, the Personal Protection Equipment is essential to comply with the occupational safety norms and the patient’s safety.

Objective: To highlight the importance of accurate selection and usage of PPE considering the standards’ framework and the applicable quality tests to promote their efficient use within healthcare environments.

Method: Analytical methods based on the specific international standards for each product including sampling methods established within the ISO 2859-1:1999, about the PPE with greater demand during the COVID-19 pandemic for which the Sanitary Regulatory Superintendency (SRS) has an installed capacity to make quality and performance analysis.

Results: The research results highlight the importance of selecting the adequate PPE considering the risk exposure, applicable international standards for each product and the need to comprehend the information that stems from the quality evaluations for an appropriate decision making.

Conclusion: The events during the COVID-19 pandemic denoted the several vulnerabilities in developing countries within the healthcare system, the access to it, and the challenges related to the healthcare technology such as drugs, medical devices (without the PPE) among others. This situation poses some questions about how prepared we are to confront future pandemics, how much the identified gaps have changed within the last few years and which is our capacity to respond and adapt to change from the regulatory perspective. Clearly, these topics have an important place in many international organizations, governments and regulatory authorities.