Personal protective equipment (PPE) refers to protective clothing (e.g. medical gowns and/or aprons), head protection (helmets and/or caps), medical gloves, face shields, goggles, glasses, surgical masks, and other equipment designed to protect the wearer from injury or the spread of infection or illness. As workplaces and businesses are continuing with their COVID-19 reopening plans, accessibility of PPE is vital to the safety of employees and consumers.
In their efforts to quickly procure an adequate supply of PPE, many agencies in the public sector have had PPE deals fall through with unqualified vendors. According to this State Scoop article, government officials in California are dealing with an overwhelming number of fraudulent and illegitimate providers of PPE. At the height of the PPE shortage, a cloud-based customer relationship management portal was established to determine which of the many suppliers claiming to have PPE were actually able to deliver.
In order to avoid fraudulent supplier activity, GovShop thoroughly vets suppliers to ensure that federal standards and company standards are exceeded. As part of the ongoing effort of Public Spend Forum to take an active role in the public sector response to the coronavirus and in accordance with the Public Spend Forum mission to connect buyers and suppliers in the public sector, GovShop’s list of verified PPE suppliers can be accessed here.
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