Stony Brook University’s iCREATE Lab has delivered 5,000 3-D printed face shields to caregivers on the front lines in the fight against the coronavirus at Stony Brook Medicine.
The final delivery to Stony Brook University Hospital occurred on Friday, April 17, culminating a project that started in early March. Face shields have been delivered to Stony Brook University Hospital, Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, the Long Island State Veterans Home and the coronavirus testing site and field ER at Stony Brook University’s South P Lot off Stony Brook Road.
“This project demonstrates the ingenuity and innovation that occur when a leading public research university collaborates with a premier academic medical center,” said Carol A. Gomes, MS, FACHE, CPHQ, Chief Executive Officer of Stony Brook University Hospital. “It shows what we can do together when we harness our resources and the intellect across our academic enterprise.”
“This is part of a vital ongoing effort to provide our doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists and other frontline caregivers with the protective personal equipment they need in the midst of the pandemic,” said Mark Sands, MD, Chief Medical Officer for Stony Brook Medicine, who is serving as Incident Commander at SBUH during the coronavirus outbreak.
The face shield project began on March 19, after SBU’s iCREATE Lab realized it could use 3-D printing technology to produce face shields, then developed several prototypes and received approval on a design. The iCREATE team designed certain parts of the face shields to be replaceable so that medical personnel can change them out, allowing for a more sanitized product.
“Our team overcome many obstacles and persevered to help provide personal protective equipment for medical personnel,” said Charlie McMahon, Interim Senior Vice President of Information Technology and Enterprise CIO for Stony Brook University. “By harnessing our creativity, technology and teamwork, we are helping address a critical need.”
The broader community got involved in the project, as the Suffolk Cooperative Library System, the private Stony Brook School, Estee Lauder, Brookhaven National Laboratory and private citizens all chipped in to help manufacture 3-D components of the face shields.
“Throughout this herculean effort, I want to thank the many employees, students and organizations for their unwavering support,” said David Ecker, Director of iCREATE at SBU.
iCREATE, a program under the Division of Information Technology at Stony Brook University, supports innovative technologies within Stony Brook University’s Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) to provide a hands-on environment of collaborative endeavors in order to spark creativity, innovation, and to ultimately redefine technological boundaries, engagement, creation, and innovation.