Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff
Medical Ventilator Design
DaJMasta:
--- Quote from: Gandalf_Sr on March 29, 2020, 11:59:12 pm ---How difficult can it be?
--- End quote ---
Not difficult to make something that can work, extremely difficult to make something that if it can't run for a week straight, guaranteed, that someone would die without constant monitoring.
While developing one as an exercise is not a bad thing to do, I would strongly advise you against 'advertising' it for use even locally if you come up with a prototype or even what counts as a finished product. To improve reliability of the system and reduce problems associated with bacterial contamination or other air supply contamination from conventional parts, I'd recommend designing something that automatically pumps an existing hand operated ventilator. This sort of design work has already been happening at universities and elsewhere, but it takes the pump and plumbing largely out of the equation, and makes it so failures or contamination of those parts is effectively mitigated by using a tested-for-medical-use hand operated ventilator.
Any device developed for this should be used only as a last-ditch measure with explicit instructions for it to be monitored continuously and with a backup measure available. A worn bearing, a small leak, or a bad line of code could cost the life of the person depending on it, so all other options should be exhausted before such a device was put to use. It may very well get to that point, but it should not be described as a normal ventilator and should not be considered a reliable device even if in whatever testing can be done in the short term has been successful.
nardev:
Looks like everyone is talking and rarely anyone is doing something seriously. Even those projects by some prestigious USA tech universities like MIT look like toys done by students.
However, i just noticed this one by some, looks like hacker space in turkey, probably supported by some more serious engineers:
Check this out: https://twitter.com/Selcuk/status/1244661929777532930
Looks like the team: https://twitter.com/Selcuk/status/1244663216313155587
I'm i'm not wrong the pictures from the process: https://twitter.com/Selcuk/status/1243539495401783320
Also the clip is here:
Also, one more interesting news: "Medtronic Shares Ventilation Design Specifications to Accelerate Efforts to Increase Global Ventilator Production @Medtronic"
https://blog.adafruit.com/2020/03/30/medtronic-shares-ventilation-design-specifications-to-accelerate-efforts-to-increase-global-ventilator-production-medtronic/comment-page-1/?unapproved=361593&moderation-hash=40d9525a3224a7229f27e7f0fee86451#comment-361593
LaserSteve:
University of Florida has a preliminary release out. .Now how do you create enough trained respiratory techs to use it correctly?
Steve
profdc9:
Well that's the big question.
The fact that the public is even involved in formulating solutions to the technical and medical response to the pandemic shows how desperate the situation is quickly becoming. If there are a million COVID-19 patients in the USA that need ventilators, a lot of people will die. No one knows who would have pulled through without a ventilator, or who will be killed by a bad improvised ventilator design.
The big question is: will things get desperate enough that lives will be risked on, what could likely be, often fatal, speculative treatments and devices?
Doctors are completely unaccustomed to making these kinds of decisions and judgment calls. They normally operate in an environment where they must adhere to a consensus standard of care supported by empirical medical evidence. They must use equipment that has the proper regulatory approvals. If they don't, they risk exposing themselves to liability and losing their license to practice medicine.
Now we are in a situation where there is simply going to be not enough resources for all of the patients that require respirators, which is a consensus standard of care of supportive therapy for Covid-19. Furthermore, we don't even have sufficient personal protective equipment for the doctors so that they can treat patients safely.
In this situation, the only feasible solution is to prevent infections by minimizing contact between individuals. It is clear that if no more respirators become available, and PPE product is not significantly increased, the likelihood of one being able to obtain life saving care is quite slim once these resources are exhausted.
So what to do? We can try to create improvised devices. It probably won't be known if they are safe and effective until they are tried on patients, and the results will be the patient survives or not. Is this type of experimentation acceptable under the circumstances? What are the alternatives?
This is not a 40 minute episode of House where his completely crazy speculative treatment always works by the end of the commercial break. Maybe we simply don't want to experiment on people who are dying, and it would be better to let them die. But then who decides the circumstances under which this kind of crude experimentation is permitted?
Even if a solution is found that works, if it requires resources that can not be scaled to apply the solution widely, then perhaps an experiment that risks the life of a patient is not worth performing because it will have little wider impact. So if we can 3-d print a ventilator, but it requires so much 3-d printing that it takes days to make all the parts and a ton of model material, maybe this is not a feasible solution. So to have an impact, the solution has to use materials and manufacturing methods that are widely available.
I don't know the answer to these questions. But the answer is somewhere between: if we can't produce something that works perfectly and is completely risk-free, it is not worth doing; and: we just have to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. That is the situation and somehow there will have to be some kind of consensus about what risks are acceptable in a crisis stiuation like we find ourselves in.
Enginerding:
Would you gentleman like to join forces? I have another thread going titled "Chapter 1...." in this same forum.
Your thread proceeds mine, but I have a ~20 years medical experience. And I think that is part of what's missing here.
If you're willing to come over, I promise there will be fame, glory, land and titles.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/chapter-1-who-has-the-engineering-skills-to-build-a-open-source-ventilator/
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