COVID-19 and the role of medical professional societies

Responding to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has helped craft a global medical community of medical professional society members and nonmembers alike in ways previously unanticipated. The public-facing elements of medical professional societies include their websites, official organs, and educational elements that have been liberated using a Free Open-Access Medical education approach. Work products including guidelines, blogs, and social media offerings have helped clinicians to prepare for pandemic care or refine existing practices to support outcome excellence. Often, that guidance has flowed from collaborations between medical professional organizations, some of which are novel and might not have occurred outside of a dire global need. Leaders of such organizations have been catapulted into the spotlight by the universal need for information and guidance—including that of one’s home government—and appeared quite regularly in print and digital media as well as live radio broadcasts. Finally, the need to pursue remote medical professional organization work as well as education has developed member and nonmember facilities with a host of digital platforms. Such skill sets have also helped to maintain communication between clinicians and patient's remote family members to support patient- and family-centered care while maintaining shared decision making. The flexibility and innovation that characterize medical professional organizations have been highlighted by the realities of providing pandemic care. © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Interpreting Air Cleaner Performance Data

The global COVID-19 pandemic has prompted widespread demand for air cleaning technologies aimed at reducing risks of airborne pathogen transmission inside buildings. The commercial landscape for air cleaning devices is complex, ranging from conventional technologies such as high-efficiency fibrous-media filters and ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) to a wide variety of electronic air cleaning technologies such as plasma generators, hydroxyl radical generators, ionizers, photocatalytic oxidizers and others. This article demonstrates some frequently prevalent issues in electronic air cleaner performance testing and reporting and proposes a path forward to meet research needs and improve test methods that could reduce the current uncertainty about the performance of electronic air cleaning technologies. It also provides tools to support practitioners and consumers in their decision-making regarding air cleaning technologies. Copyright 2022 ASHRAE.