Emergency ventilator for COVID-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the world in 2020 by spreading at unprecedented rates and causing tens of thousands of fatalities within a few months. The number of deaths dramatically increased in regions where the number of patients in need of hospital care exceeded the availability of care. Many COVID-19 patients experience Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), a condition that can be treated with mechanical ventilation. In response to the need for mechanical ventilators, designed and tested an emergency ventilator (EV) that can control a patient’s peak inspiratory pressure (PIP) and breathing rate, while keeping a positive end expiratory pressure (PEEP). This article describes the rapid design, prototyping, and testing of the EV. The development process was enabled by rapid design iterations using additive manufacturing (AM). In the initial design phase, iterations between design, AM, and testing enabled a working prototype within one week. The designs of the 16 different components of the ventilator were locked by additively manufacturing and testing a total of 283 parts having parametrically varied dimensions. In the second stage, AM was used to produce 75 functional prototypes to support engineering evaluation and animal testing. The devices were tested over more than two million cycles. We also developed an electronic monitoring system and with automatic alarm to provide for safe operation, along with training materials and user guides. The final designs are available online under a free license. The designs have been transferred to more than 70 organizations in 15 countries. This project demonstrates the potential for ultra-fast product design, engineering, and testing of medical devices needed for COVID-19 emergency response.

Repurposing CPAP machines as stripped-down ventilators

“…Both measurements demonstrate that our CARL-based ventilator can generate two pressure levels to produce ventilation patterns typical for mechanical ventilation 24 . The acquired ventilation curves are comparable to the ones produced by already published mechanical ventilator solutions 9 – 16 that vary with different sets of functionalities.…”

“…This supports our previous finding that CPAP machines can quickly adapt to the sudden pressure and flow changes induced by CARL. Similar to other ventilation solutions, both ventilation parameters can be easily implemented in the code for the internal computer 9 – 16 . As such, it should be possible to cover any range of values for the respiratory rate and the I:E ratio that are outlined in international standards 27 , 28 or guidelines 20 .…”

“…One prominent approach focuses on machines that automatically compress and decompress bag valve masks 9 – 13 . Other groups pursue ventilator solutions that can be built from scratch with the expertise and the facilities from different industrial branches 14 – 16 .…”

Construction and Performance Testing of a Fast-Assembly COVID-19 (FALCON) Emergency Ventilator in a Model of Normal and Low-Pulmonary Compliance Conditions

“…Based on these realities, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for guidance on developing new or repurposing non-ICU ventilators to treat COVID-19 (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2020a). Support groups around the world rapidly responded by developing low-cost "homemade" mechanical ventilators for use in emergency surge crisis situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic (Albert et al, 2020;Blacker et al, 2020;Galbialta et al, 2020;Garmendia et al, 2020;King et al, 2020;Pearce, 2020;Zuckerberg et al, 2020;MIT Emergency Ventilator, 2020a).…”

Collaborative and Structured Network for Maintenance of Mechanical Ventilators during the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic

“…The shortage of ventilators was observed in healthcare facilities in different parts of the world, including developed and developing countries such as the United States, Italy, Brazil, and countries on the African continent [ 23 , 54 , 55 ]. Within this context, different initiatives were adopted to mitigate the impact of the low availability of these devices in health systems, including granting emergency use authorization for new ventilators [ 38 , 56 ], establishing collaborative networks between countries for local production of the equipment [ 57 , 58 , 59 ], and scaling up the production of new low-cost and effective ventilators to keep up with the high demand [ 60 , 61 , 62 ]. To this end, some recognized ventilator manufacturers reallocated human, financial, and material resources to increase production of the devices, in addition to allowing free access to the ventilator designs so that other engineering companies could produce and market them [ 63 , 64 ].…”