With many kinds of medical supplies at a premium during the pandemic, one Corvallis resident has found a way to help alleviate the shortage.

Ryan Aman, an electronic medical records systems analyst at the Corvallis Clinic, is using his personal 3D printer to produce face shields and is distributing them to medical personnel at no cost. The clear plastic shields are typically used in conjunction with face masks and are designed to protect health care workers from exposure to bodily fluids.

The idea to start creating the shields came when Aman started hearing about a shortage of them in his workplace. He discovered a group on Facebook where other users had shared their designs for creating shields and face masks, and he decided to put the 3D printer he had received as a birthday gift to work.

“They’re pretty quick and easy. They take between 40 minutes and an hour and a half to make,” Aman said. “I figured anything that I can do is probably going to help someone.”

Aman began creating shields in his garage around the middle of March and has created more than 60 already while continuing his normal work at the Corvallis Clinic. He sent 25 shields to a family friend who works in an emergency room in Idaho, and has provided 27 for his own workplace.

He and others who make the shields know they won’t be able to match the quality of industry-standard shields, and they aren’t easily sanitized. But even if they are only used once and then disposed of, he is just glad the health care workers who use them will have readily available supplies.

The cost for him to make one mask, he estimates, is around 70 cents; one important material is plastic binder covers, and he purchased a 100-pack of them for $10. Aman has also been using his printer to construct hooks for face masks in order to help take the strain off the ears of medical workers who wear the masks for long periods of time. He has produced nearly 100 of those.

Aman does not want any monetary compensation for the supplies — although some of the recipients have offered to reimburse him for the cost of the materials.

“I think this is going to help kind of alleviate that stress and anxiety of, ‘Oh no, we’re getting low, do we ration these?’” Aman said. “We’re trying to help during this shortage when there’s just not a great supply chain. These may not be the best, but they’re something in the interim.”

For others who have the means to create similar supplies, Aman recommended visiting the COVID-19 supply chain response page on the National Institutes of Health’s website, https://3dprint.nih.gov/collections/covid-19-response

In late March, Hewlett-Packard announced that it was mobilizing 3D printing teams to deliver medical supplies and parts to hospitals in order to combat coronavirus. HP’s Corvallis site was included in the collaboration, and the company announced on March 24 that it had already delivered over 1,000 parts to local hospitals.

On its website, the company lists printable designs for parts that are used to create hands-free door-openers, face masks, face shields and other supplies. Visit: https://enable.hp.com/us-en-3dprint-COVID-19-containment-applications