Dreamer is Truely Dreaming

Dreamer in the comment to my March 6th post references two deceptively attractive solutions to the severe shortage of ventilators world-wide.

The first is an "open source" ventilator design to be built ad hoc and used for "over flow" ventilator capacity. Dreamer posted the concept on a blog (http://panvent.blogspot.com/2007/02/pandemic-ventilator-contingency.html) and advocates for its use. This is no better a solution than using transport ventilators for pandemic flu patients or having no ventilators at all. The problem is airway pressures. Transport ventilators and ventilators without feedback pressure control cause significant and fatal lung damage after excessive periods of use. Pandemic flu patients will already suffer high ARDS which is associated with high airway pressures. The idea of ventilating patients with ventilators that cannot regulate the airway pressures or the pressure curves is simplistic at best and irresponsible at worst. Since the end result of excessive airway pressures is the same as not ventilating the patient at all, it is a waste of valuable resources to attempt this solution.

Dreamer also references a plan to ventilate multiple patients with a single ventilator using specialized ventilator circuits. This concept was published in the prestigious Journal of the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine. Unfortunately this plan relies on a fact not yet in evidence, namely that the airway pressures and ventilatory volumes for each patient on a common circuit can be matched. There is also the aesthetics of this proposal, I doubt may patients or families will agree to a shared ventilator.

Unfortunately, Dreamer is dreaming of a solution that is not viable in the healthcare market of 2007.

Comments

[Dreamer]

I have the first design for the Pandemic Ventilator up on my blog at Pandemic Ventilator Project
www.panvent.blogspot.com

See it for yourself. This is not for the healthcare market. This is for when the market fails.
This is a design for a ventilator you can build yourself from readily available parts such a pipe, tubing electrically operated valves, a Programable Logic Controller (PLC) and a regular computer (PC) if a pandemic arrives. It will have overpressure, disconnection, rate alarms and be fully automatic. The software to drive the equipment and operate all of the alarm systems will be available as free and open source. Please click on the Digg icon and send this URL to your friends if you think that this is a worthwhile project and that I should keep working on it.

[Dreamer]

I have built the first ventilator prototype and have test run it with the control software. I still have to add the pressure sensor and alarm systems. There is much to do yet. You can see pictures of it and a video of it actually running at my blog at:

http://panvent.blogspot.com
Click on the link and have a look.