Morgan Scientific COVID-19 Updates
August 27, 2020
Dear Valued Morgan Scientific Customer,
Many pulmonary function and spirometry testing labs are evaluating whether it is appropriate to re-start their services. There are many questions outstanding about when it would be safe to do so, new cleaning and patient care protocols.
The ATS has published a paper that will hopefully give you reassurance and guidance to answer some of these questions for you, and to allow you make plans to re-start this vital service.
Restoring Pulmonary and Sleep Services as the COVID-19 Pandemic Lessens: From an Association of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Division Directors and American Thoracic Society-coordinated Task Force – Click here for a link to the article
The goals are to protect patients and staff from exposure to the virus, account for limitations in staff, equipment, and space that are essential for the care of COVID-19 patients, and provide access to care for patients with acute and chronic conditions. The guidance recommends resumption of elective in-person services be considered only in regions that have satisfied the CDC gating criteria for reopening: 1) a downward trajectory of Covid-like cases and influenza-like illnesses over a 14-day period, 2) hospitals are capable of treating all patients without crisis care, 3) a robust testing program is in place for at-risk healthcare workers.
Since PFT’s may result in high aerosolization of droplets which may increase the risk of cross-contamination, the paper provides suggestions for minimizing this risk through the use of screening, prioritization, viral filters, patient surface decontamination, and distancing.
If you have any questions or need assistance to prepare your equipment for resuming services, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
I wish everyone the best during this difficult time.
Gareth P. Morgan, Ph.D
President – Morgan Scientific, Inc.
gmorgan@morgansci.com
April 24, 2020
Dear Valued Morgan Scientific Customer,
It has been a few weeks since our last posting, so I wanted to take a moment to provide a couple of updates. First, we have revised all of our cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization instructions. The changes reflect a move towards greater clarity on when and how to clean, disinfect, and/or sterilize your Morgan PFT equipment. The instructions are available here: Body Plethysmograph; SpiroAir; TransAir2/3; FVL; Vitalograph Pneumotrac™. Second, we have been making updates to our website, particularly in the area of Telemedicine. If home monitoring of spirometry is of interest, I encourage you to visit the Telemedicine page to learn more. We continue to monitor the state and local governments in regard to social distancing and when it will be appropriate to switch back to normal operations. We recognize that many of you are on the front lines of caring for patients with COVID-19 and we sincerely thank you for all that you do.
I wish everyone the best during this difficult time.
Gareth
Gareth P. Morgan, Ph.D
President – Morgan Scientific, Inc.
(O) 978-521-4440
gmorgan@morgansci.com
April 7, 2020
Dear Valued Morgan Scientific Customer,
First and foremost, I sincerely hope you are all keeping as safe and healthy as possible. I am writing to provide some key updates regarding our ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and to provide some answers and documentation in response to frequently asked questions.
Morgan’s Business Operations
Morgan Scientific is headquartered in Massachusetts, with employees in several states. In March, we invoked our Business Continuity Plan, and have made ongoing adjustments to our operations to meet the needs of our customers while taking measures to ensure the health of our employees and doing our part to help slow the transmission of COVID-19 in the communities where we live and work.
Morgan Scientific is considered an essential business by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in light of our role as a manufacturer and distributor of medical devices and accessories. As such, we have remained fully operational. While most of our team members are working remotely, we have maintained rotating in-person staffing at our headquarters to ensure fulfillment of accessory and consumable orders, process hardware orders, and conduct hardware service. In addition, we have enacted steps to expand our strategic stockpile of Bacterial-Viral Filters (BVFs) to include further geographical redundancy. Please note that we are periodically observing a slight increase in overall door-to-door processing time of orders due to inbound and outbound shipping and freight time variables. Our temporary suspension of non-essential business travel remains in place and is under weekly review. Lastly, we continue to temporarily use an automated phone attendant to route inbound calls to our office.
PFT Filters and COVID-19
It is well known, but worth emphasizing, that a new, single-use, high quality bacterial-viral filter (BVF) should be used for each and every patient. Morgan Scientific is a proud distributor of ECO BVFs, which have undergone extensive independent testing and “provide an efficient hygiene solution giving better than 99.999% protection from bacterial and viral cross infection.” For more information, you can download the independent testing report or view the certificate of cross-infection efficiency. In addition, we distribute BVFs containing Technostat® filter media, which is manufactured to stringent ISO standards and has been independently tested to have a viral filtration efficiency of 99.917%.
PFT Hardware and COVID-19
In addition to the use of a new BVF for every patient, we want to ensure all customers have the latest cleaning and disinfection information for our PFT equipment. The outside surfaces of our PFT hardware, especially patient touchpoints, may be cleaned using a cloth saturated with 70% isopropyl alcohol to remove any observable soiling and for low-level disinfection. Alternatively, you can follow your own facility’s low-level disinfection procedures. In light of characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 and its ability to remain infectious on surfaces, CDC guidelines suggest that it is important to ensure that hardware surfaces are cleaned and decontaminated after every patient (current CDC guidance here). For higher level of decontamination, cleaning instructions for our most popular PFT devices are available here: Body Plethysmograph; SpiroAir; TransAir2/3; FVL; Vitalograph Pneumotrac™. Should you require other information for less common devices or legacy devices not listed, please contact us at support@morgansci.com. Other questions have arisen regarding what to do when temporarily shutting down a PFT lab outfitted with our full PFT hardware. The Service Team has put together a guide which can be found in the COVID-19 Service FAQ section of our website.
We sincerely wish each and every member of the Morgan Scientific network well during this difficult time. We would like to extend a sincere thank you to our loyal customers, and to the many users of our solutions who are also respiratory therapists, nurses, and clinical providers serving on the front lines, caring for patients with COVID-19. If I can answer any questions for you or make the Morgan Scientific team available to assist or answer questions, please do not hesitate in the least to contact me.
Sincerely,
Gareth P. Morgan, Ph.D
President – Morgan Scientific, Inc.
(o) 978-521-4440
gmorgan@morgansci.com
COVID-19 Service FAQ
The following FAQ is from our Service Team, in response to questions about what to do if your PFT equipment will go temporarily unused:
- About two weeks or more.
- ComPAS should be shut down using normal procedure to allow the ComPAS Watchdog to evacuate DLCO gas so that no gas remains in the cells.
- Shut off DLCO gas tank.
- Remove chemical absorber, empty out the chemicals, and store the absorber. Do not put it back in the device, the rubber end caps may crack.
- Remove inspiratory and expiratory bags from patient valve and dispose of or store.
- Put a plastic bag over the patient valve to prevent dust from settling on it.
- Body Box door should remain open to ensure that the door seal is not compressed permanently.
- Shut off the device’s main power switch and remove power cord (pull out).
- Locate the serial (communications) cable on the Body Box electronics module. Unscrew the connector and disconnect the cable.
- ComPAS should be shut down using normal procedure to allow the ComPAS Watchdog to evacuate DLCO gas, helium, and oxygen so that no gas remains in the cells. The Watchdog will also ensure that the spirometer seal is set to the closed position.
- Shut off DLCO, helium, and oxygen gas tanks.
- Remove chemical absorber column, empty out the chemicals, and store it. Do not put it back in the device, the rubber end caps may crack.
- Remove inspiratory and expiratory bags from patient valve and dispose of or store.
- Put a plastic bag over the patient valve to prevent dust from settling on it.
- Remove lung volume/CO2 (Carbolime) canister, empty out the chemicals, and store it (Do not put it back in the device).
- Remove blue lung volume hoses and store. Preferably, hang them vertically.
- Shut off the device’s main power switch and remove power cord (pull out).
- Locate the serial (communications) cable on the Body Box electronics module. Unscrew the connector and disconnect the cable.
- ComPAS should be shut down using normal procedure to allow the ComPAS Watchdog to evacuate DLCO gas so that no gas remains in the cells.
- Shut off DLCO gas tank.
- Remove chemical absorber, empty out the chemicals, and store the absorber. Do not put it back in the device, the rubber end caps may crack.
- Remove inspiratory and expiratory bags from patient valve and dispose of or store.
- Put a plastic bag over the patient valve to prevent dust from settling on it.
- Shut off the device’s main power switch and remove power cord (pull out).
- Locate the serial (communications) cable on the Body Box electronics module. Unscrew the connector and disconnect the cable.
- Reconnect all disconnected cables.
- Replace the inspiratory and expiratory bags.
- Refill absorber column with fresh chemicals and replace in the device.
- Turn on the gas tank(s) and set to appropriate pressure.
- Power up the device and allow 12 hours warm up in order heat up the helium block.
- SpiroAir Only
- Refill lung volume/CO2 (Carbolime) canister and replace in the device.
- Reconnect blue lung volume hoses.
- Run the appropriate calibrations/quality checks that are normally done before daily use.
- If you replaced the pneumotach screen with a new one, be sure to complete a new span.
