Sunday, March 22, 2020 9:02:48 AM
In Stroke of Genius, Doctor Turns 1 Ventilator into 4
Doctors fighting the COVID-19 outbreak are finding new ways to combat a possible ventilator shortage by turning one ventilator into four.
Based on her study conducted in 2006, Dr. Charlene Babcock, who practices in the Detroit area, demonstrated how one ventilator could be easily modified to provide ventilation for four adults.
“Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many health care providers are struggling with a situation where they may have more than one patient needing ventilation and not enough ventilators to go around,” Babcock explained in her instructional video.
Using human lung simulators, she found in her study that one ventilator could successfully provide equal ventilation to four adults at the same time.
Babcock said that while this has only been tried on test lungs thus far, the information could be used in an emergency situation.
“First of all, you want to make sure the lung sizes are the same in all four portions of the cycle or the circuit,” she said.
“We wouldn’t want to put a pediatric patient with an adult patient, because that wouldn’t make sense.”
Doctors using this method would also need to make sure the resistance is the same, so putting a patient who has severe bronchospasm with one who does not would also not work.
Doctors fighting the COVID-19 outbreak are finding new ways to combat a possible ventilator shortage by turning one ventilator into four.
Based on her study conducted in 2006, Dr. Charlene Babcock, who practices in the Detroit area, demonstrated how one ventilator could be easily modified to provide ventilation for four adults.
“Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many health care providers are struggling with a situation where they may have more than one patient needing ventilation and not enough ventilators to go around,” Babcock explained in her instructional video.
Using human lung simulators, she found in her study that one ventilator could successfully provide equal ventilation to four adults at the same time.
Babcock said that while this has only been tried on test lungs thus far, the information could be used in an emergency situation.
“First of all, you want to make sure the lung sizes are the same in all four portions of the cycle or the circuit,” she said.
“We wouldn’t want to put a pediatric patient with an adult patient, because that wouldn’t make sense.”
Doctors using this method would also need to make sure the resistance is the same, so putting a patient who has severe bronchospasm with one who does not would also not work.
So in ten minutes the evil genius who is one of our GP anaesthetists (with a PhD in diaphragmatic mechanics) increased our rural hospitals ventilator capacity from one to nine!!! pic.twitter.com/yNmuCCDbWd
— alan drummond (@alandrummond2) March 17, 2020
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