Voice Amplifier to Enhance Occupational Safety and Critical Care among Masked Providers

Project Summary/Abstract The proposed project relates to the development of a technological intervention to improve speech intelligibility among healthcare workers who wear personal protective equipment for occupational safety while caring for patients with infectious diseases. Respiratory protective equipment such as filtering facepiece respirators, elastomeric half- and full-facepiece respirators and powered air-purifying respirators are routinely worn in the critical care unit as components of personal protective equipment for occupational safety when caring for patients with infectious diseases including COVID-19. Diminished speech intelligibility has been observed to be associated with certain types of respiratory protective equipment. Effective verbal exchanges are vital in critical care and significant reductions in speech intelligibility impact many complex tasks. The objective of this proposed scientifically rigorous phase I project is to specify, design, construct, test and evaluate a fully functional prototype system to improve speech intelligibility among healthcare workers wearing respiratory protective equipment. The system will be designed for use in a healthcare environment and be compatible with a wide variety of respiratory protective equipment.