The Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Portrait Project is a hybrid art and medical intervention designed to improve patient care and team dynamics by humanizing the alienating appearance of PPE through warm and smiling headshot portraits fixed to the outside of a healthcare worker's PPE.

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The purpose of these portraits is to:

1. Reduce patient isolation and fear                                             

2. Increase trust and connection with the healthcare worker  

3. Increase patient awareness of who is taking care of them   

4. Humanize healthcare workers and increase team dynamics

 

The PPE Portrait Project was created by Mary Beth Heffernan in response to the 2014-16 Ebola epidemic in West Africa. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the project gained more momentum at medical centres around the world. In order to continue our mission of humanizing healthcare in the absence of volunteering from March to August 2020, the ICUBP team reached out to Mary Beth Heffernan for her guidance in implementing this initiative in Montreal hospitals. Currently, the PPE Portraits Project has expanded across Canada and we are beginning to implement portraits into CHSLDs around Montreal. Check out the PPE Portraits Canada website!

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