Manufacturing Extension Partnership connects Alaska’s manufacturers to health care providers amid COVID-19
Alpine Fit, an outdoor apparel company, has been making face masks, both for health care workers and the general public (Photo courtesy of Jennifer Loofburrow).
As COVID-19 cases in Alaska surpass 185, manufacturers have been working to equip and support the state’s medical providers.
Alyssa Rodrigues is the director of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), which aligns partners to maximize the value of Alaska’s manufacturers. She says that MEP is identifying businesses that can make critical supplies — specifically personal protective equipment (PPE). Her team is part of ongoing discussions with the State Emergency Operations Center as well as the hospitals individually to understand their needs.
“We hear a lot about masks, but what else is needed? And in what quantities?” Rodrigues says. “We can’t make N95 masks. We might be able to 3D print some, but we don’t have a manufacturer who can pump them out at scale — but we can make a lot of other things, and so we’re trying with our survey and with one-on-one outreach to understand what we can make.”
Recently, MEP worked to pass amendment SB 241 in the Alaska State Legislature, which grants a waiver of liability to both the health care providers who use locally-made PPE and the manufacturers who supply it.
“It doesn’t protect them from gross negligence, so it doesn’t protect hospitals if they don’t let their employees know, ‘Hey, this PPE doesn’t meet federal guidelines,’ or if they give them nothing, it doesn’t protect them in that case,” Rodrigues said. “But it does allow them to give people the best PPE available, even if that doesn’t meet federal guidelines.”
“We were finding that health care professionals were crafting their own [personal protective equipment], and that’s really the scariest scenario besides having nothing,” Rodrigues added. “You just can’t make the same quality in material with superglue and whatever is in the supply cupboard.”
Rodrigues has been speaking with manufacturers across the state to understand what their capabilities are, like Amalga Distillery in Juneau, who is making hand sanitizer for their Southeast community, or Perfectionist Auto Sound in Anchorage, who is making face shields for medical workers. Jennifer Loofburrow of Alpine Fit, an outdoor appeal company, has transitioned its operations to manufacture face masks, both for the health care workers and the general public.
“We’ve been trying to further the conversation of what would be a viable solution of masks for the general public to use so that nobody in the general public is hoarding masks that the health care providers need — and at the same time, working on a viable solution for health care providers to use, like in a clinical setting,” Loofburrow said. “As soon as we started making them, the orders just started pouring in.”
Loofburrow has been in talks with MEP to create an approved mask for a clinical setting. The masks her team has been making have two layers of tightly woven cotton with an adjustable nose-piece.
“[The mask] also opens, so if people have access to other filter materials or an existing mask they want to protect and prolong the life of, they can fit that in the pocket or wear it over top of it,” Loofburrow said.
Loofburrow just picked up the first batch of surgical fabric to create such clinical masks.
“That material can actually be autoclaved, so sterilized in the hospital autoclave for cleanliness, but also it could be autoclaved again as long as the hospital is set up to handle that,” Loofburrow said.
If you’re a manufacturer interested in working with MEP, email avshanks01@alaska.edu.
MEP is part of UAA’s Business Enterprise Institute and a sister organization of the Center for Economic Development.