Cooling solutions for (COVID-19) healthcare workers

COVID-19 healthcare staff wear protective clothing such as a plastic apron, face mask, hairnet and splash goggles to prevent contamination with the coronavirus in the workplace. Although effective, this protective clothing limits the release of heat to the environment, causing many COVID-19 healthcare workers to experience heat stress. The COOLVID project "Cooling solutions for (COVID-19) healthcare workers" is a spin-off of the Thermo Tokyo project and aims to translate and implement knowledge and expertise about the use and application of cooling strategies from top sport to the healthcare sector . We specifically focus on nursing staff. Applied cooling interventions can substantially reduce heat stress, improving the physical and cognitive performance of healthcare professionals and reducing recovery time after a work shift. The research is carried out by Radboud University Medical Center in collaboration with TNO, Inuteq and NOC*NSF. What is the added value of cooling vests for healthcare professionals who work with COVID-19 patients? Thijs Eijsvogels and Boris Kingma investigated this with this research. They talk about it in the video. And nurse Mike Zwartkruis talks about the use of the cooling vests: 'I experience my work as much easier. You are less concerned with that heat, which ultimately allows you to provide better patient care.' Watch the project video. For practice: Cooling vest is part of standard equipment Special: COVID nurse gets through the shift better with a cooling vest