81872MedicCom - Overcoming the communications barriers caused by Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)ClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKThe need to wear PPE has suddenly changed the way in which doctors and nurses communicate with patients, with relatives, and with each other. When treating the most serious cases, hospital staff wear breathing apparatus and masks that greatly restrict the ability to speak. This type of PPE means that important communication becomes distorted and difficult to hear. Patients, especially the deaf, elderly or blind, are being given critical, life changing, information by someone they can hardly hear. Relatives cannot be with their loved ones, so have to be given information by telephone, via a remote and distorted voice. There is further concern about patient safety incidents that have happened due to errors from miscommunication within clinical teams. This was the subject of a Royal College of Emergency Medicine "Safety Flash" to the NHS in July 2020 "Communication Errors with PPE". Our solution is a communications device (called MedicCom), which will be worn by health and care staff to overcome multiple communication barriers. Staff will wear a bone conduction or throat microphone, clearly picking up their voice, even when wearing a respirator mask. When talking to a patient, or to the medical team around the patient, the MedicCom device will act as a voice amplifier, with signal processing algorithms delivering clear natural sounding speech. To enable normal telephone conversations with relatives, the MedicCom will use Bluetooth to connect to a mobile phone, such that the patient's relative will be unaware that the doctor or nurse is wearing PPE. A cable will also enable the MedicComm to be plugged into the hospital's internal phone system to talk to colleagues in other departments or receive incoming information from the ambulance service. This project is a collaboration between engineers from Formula One Racing teams, a University, and a NHS Hospital Trust. Project Pitlane is a not for profit company that uses the know-how of the UK's world-leading motor sport industry to achieve public good. We have developed a prototype MedicCom device and aim to rapidly make the verified MedicCom available to the NHS. PPE use in healthcare is likely to continue for the foreseeable future and there is a worldwide urgent need to overcome the barriers to communications caused by changed medical practice, including PPE. The MedicCom will have a worldwide market and may be used in other situations (e.g. care homes) where difficulties in hearing staff due to PPE are an issue.