The Innovation
The apparel was born at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto during the 2003 SARS crisis when a frontline health care worker called an old friend and Silicon Valley innovator for help. Design and testing started in the PPE training lab at St. Michael’s, steps from the ICUs. Developing PPE in the trenches, with continuous feedback from frontline health care workers, taught us what works and what does not in an Infectious Disease ICU.
We know countless doctors and nurses who suffered. A personal friend and health care worker got infected in 2003 while wearing PPE that was never designed for Infectious Disease use. She became a patient in the hospital and lost a kidney. In the following decade, she miscarried three times due to renal failure, and never had children in the end. It took ten years to fully realize the costs of working the SARS ICUs. It is for people like her that we never gave up and spent years developing the best apparel for health care workers.
The gown has seen countless iterations since 2003. We tried and vetted more ideas than we can count. Most did not work. For the solutions that did, we tested and refined the details.
Since 2003, we've been warning that most countries and hospitals were not ready. When covid arrived, countries that did not successfully stockpile PPE designed for Infectious Disease saw thousands of their doctors and nurses die, suffer, and quit. Over 5000 healthcare workers have died in America during the covid pandemic, and counting. Hospital shortages from a lack of healthcare workers have become common in the United States.
We constantly remind people that there is a big difference between vaccines and protective apparel. Vaccines reduce disease severity, protective apparel (good PPE, that is) prevents infection. A vaccinated nurse still: (a) gets infected (see Louisiana's recent shortages where 540 staff had to quarantine), (b) passes the virus to their loved ones, (c) stresses about (a) and (b), (d) suffers PTSD when (c) persists, and (e) quits.
It is time we take protecting healthcare workers seriously. Police officers, firefighters, and military all deservedly receive thousands of dollars of protective apparel that benefits from decades of research. Infectious disease doctors and nurses deserve no less.
The Company
Verasuit, LLC started in 2003 and survived between outbreaks while most did not. In that time, we never gave up on advancing protective apparel for health care workers.
At St. Mike's in Toronto in 2003, we were first to acknowledge the dual airborne and droplet nature of SARS in the ICUs and spent years developing protective apparel for all three infection modes. Will has met with PPE experts, manufacturers, and Infection Professionals everywhere from Toronto to Geneva, Atlanta's CDC, Singapore, Korea, Stanford University, Manhattan, Cleveland, and countless hospitals. Over the years, we have advanced seam taping, reduced filter resistance, proven numerous of our own new inventions, worked with researchers and the government, and countless other steps forward in protective apparel technology. Verasuit, LLC has been a pioneer for better protective apparel for health care workers for almost two decades, and remains a world leader.
Verasuit, LLC's predecessor in name, Honeywood Technologies LLC, created and sold multiple technologies, including power conservation technology to Samsung, which is present in every Samsung smartphone on the planet, saving tens of megawatts daily. The company has been successful for two decades because it has repeatedly been able to see an unmet need, devise novel solutions, and execute on them.
The apparel was born at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto during the 2003 SARS crisis when a frontline health care worker called an old friend and Silicon Valley innovator for help. Design and testing started in the PPE training lab at St. Michael’s, steps from the ICUs. Developing PPE in the trenches, with continuous feedback from frontline health care workers, taught us what works and what does not in an Infectious Disease ICU.
We know countless doctors and nurses who suffered. A personal friend and health care worker got infected in 2003 while wearing PPE that was never designed for Infectious Disease use. She became a patient in the hospital and lost a kidney. In the following decade, she miscarried three times due to renal failure, and never had children in the end. It took ten years to fully realize the costs of working the SARS ICUs. It is for people like her that we never gave up and spent years developing the best apparel for health care workers.
The gown has seen countless iterations since 2003. We tried and vetted more ideas than we can count. Most did not work. For the solutions that did, we tested and refined the details.
Since 2003, we've been warning that most countries and hospitals were not ready. When covid arrived, countries that did not successfully stockpile PPE designed for Infectious Disease saw thousands of their doctors and nurses die, suffer, and quit. Over 5000 healthcare workers have died in America during the covid pandemic, and counting. Hospital shortages from a lack of healthcare workers have become common in the United States.
We constantly remind people that there is a big difference between vaccines and protective apparel. Vaccines reduce disease severity, protective apparel (good PPE, that is) prevents infection. A vaccinated nurse still: (a) gets infected (see Louisiana's recent shortages where 540 staff had to quarantine), (b) passes the virus to their loved ones, (c) stresses about (a) and (b), (d) suffers PTSD when (c) persists, and (e) quits.
It is time we take protecting healthcare workers seriously. Police officers, firefighters, and military all deservedly receive thousands of dollars of protective apparel that benefits from decades of research. Infectious disease doctors and nurses deserve no less.
The Company
Verasuit, LLC started in 2003 and survived between outbreaks while most did not. In that time, we never gave up on advancing protective apparel for health care workers.
At St. Mike's in Toronto in 2003, we were first to acknowledge the dual airborne and droplet nature of SARS in the ICUs and spent years developing protective apparel for all three infection modes. Will has met with PPE experts, manufacturers, and Infection Professionals everywhere from Toronto to Geneva, Atlanta's CDC, Singapore, Korea, Stanford University, Manhattan, Cleveland, and countless hospitals. Over the years, we have advanced seam taping, reduced filter resistance, proven numerous of our own new inventions, worked with researchers and the government, and countless other steps forward in protective apparel technology. Verasuit, LLC has been a pioneer for better protective apparel for health care workers for almost two decades, and remains a world leader.
Verasuit, LLC's predecessor in name, Honeywood Technologies LLC, created and sold multiple technologies, including power conservation technology to Samsung, which is present in every Samsung smartphone on the planet, saving tens of megawatts daily. The company has been successful for two decades because it has repeatedly been able to see an unmet need, devise novel solutions, and execute on them.