Voice Amplifier to Enhance Critical Care Coordination among Masked Providers

The proposed project seeks 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 project will include two human studies testing a newly designed noninvasive speaker like device as a tool for improved communication