[Provisioning of personal protective equipment in hospitals in preparation for a pandemic]

At the beginning of the SARS-CoV‑2 outbreak, personal protective equipment (PPE) was scarce worldwide, leading to the treatment of patients partially without sufficient protection for the medical personnel. In order to be prepared for a new epidemic or pandemic or a "second wave" of COVID-19 outbreak and to meet a renewed deficiency of PPE, considerations were made on how personnel and patients can be better protected by appropriate provisioning.

The aim of this study was to develop a tool to predict the necessary amount of PPE to be in stock at a transregional university hospital for a certain period of time during a pandemic.

The consumption of PPE needed for every patient was calculated based on the following data of the Ulm University Hospital: the total consumption of healthcare workers' PPE for April 2020 recorded by the materials management department and the number of patients suffering from COVID-19 and their treatment days. From the amount of PPE necessary for every patient in the intensive care unit (ICU) or in an infection ward, a PPE calculator was created in which the estimated amount of PPE can be calculated with the input variables "patients in intensive care unit", "patients in infection ward" and "treatment days". To validate the PPE calculator, the actual consumption of PPE for May 2020 at the Ulm University hospital was compared to the theoretically calculated demand by the PPE calculator.

In April 2020 PPE consisting of 18 different items were kept in stock at Ulm University Hospital and in total 1,995,500 individual items were used. 22 intensive care patients with 257 nursing days and in the infection ward 39 patients with 357 nursing days were treated for COVID-19 disease, leading to a total of 603.2 man-days. A total of 34,550 KN95 masks, 1,558,780 gloves and 1100 goggles or protective visors were used, with a daily average of 49 NK95 masks and 2216 gloves required per ICU patient. In May 2020, 6 ICU patients and 19 patients in infection wards were treated for COVID-19 with 34 nursing days in intensive care and 201 nursing days in infection wards. The use of PPE material was 39% lower than in the previous month but in absolute terms 82% and on average 39% higher than calculated.

The developed tool allows our hospital to estimate the necessary amount of PPE to be kept in stock for future pandemics. By taking local conditions into account this tool can also be helpful for other hospitals.