GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Clean Rooms International (CRI) – a manufacturer of cleanrooms, workstations, and air filtration equipment – is taking action in response to the urgent needs presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. To support life-sustaining and essential service providers, the company has successfully reconfigured and repurposed stock products to enable hospitals to convert standard patient rooms into negative pressure rooms for patient isolation.

“Healthcare systems are experiencing incredible pressure to accommodate growing numbers of patients impacted by the coronavirus,” said Tim Werkema, president and CEO of CRI. “Customers came to us seeking a new way to quickly convert standard hospital rooms into negative pressure rooms for quarantine. In less than a week, our team of engineers repurposed dozens of units. In less than a month, we’ve shipped more than 1,000 from coast to coast.”

Due to the nature of the COVID-19 disease, which can be transmitted through respiratory droplets in the air, CRI engineers looked at its HEPA air filtration product inventory. Standard HEPA fan filter units were inverted and paired with exhaust systems or mounted to a small cradle with castors to create mobile units. The products are highly efficient in filtering and evacuating contaminants from the air. This creates a negative pressure environment, minimizing airborne contagions from entering hallways and corridors in a health facility.

“As infection levels continue to rise, hospital systems will look for new and inventive ways to convert their facilities to meet patient needs,” said Bret Asper, chief operations officer at CRI. “We’re grateful our product engineers were able to come up with a quick and cost-effective solution and we can bring this to market as quickly as we did.”

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