Since 2015, the Intensive Care Unit Bridge Program’s (ICUBP, www.icubridgeprogram.org) mission has been to humanize Montreal's ICUs.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, the ICUBP team expanded this mission by humanizing mask-wearing/Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), through the PPE Portrait Project.
The PPE Portrait Project is a hybrid art & medical intervention designed to improve patient care and team dynamics by humanizing the alienating appearance of PPE, through warm, smiling headshot portraits fixed to the outside of the healthcare worker’s PPE. This is meant to:
- Reduce patient isolation and fears.
- Increase trust and connection with the healthcare professional.
- Increase patient awareness of who is taking care of them.
- Humanize healthcare workers and increase team dynamics.
The ICUBP team has consulted with the project's creator, Mary Beth Heffernan (www.ppeportrait.org), who had developed the project's guidelines in consultation with the World Health Organization (WHO)-Liberia Case Management Team during the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa. The project is now being applied to the COVID-19 pandemic at numerous medical centers.