The Open Ventilator Initiative in Madrid
In this time of global emergency, innovative ideas are emerging all over the world to alleviate the shortage of the necessary elements to avoid deaths. In addition to epidemiological and medical research that seeks to find the long-awaited vaccine soon, multiple technological innovation initiatives are being developed. The large number of infected people represents an unprecedented challenge for the health systems of all countries. The necessary devices exist but at this time they are scarce due to the price and the manufacturing process.
The Open Ventilator is an artificial respirator designed to help COVID-19 patients with severe respiratory difficulties. It is an automatic respirator that uses certified and tested parts. It has a built-in mechanism to regulate volume and pressure throughout the respiratory cycle. Its software is already in a position to meet the minimum requirements requested by the health authorities. The main objective of the prototype design is to achieve mass production as quickly as possible and at a low cost. The first live tests have shown high functionality, versatility, safety and efficacy.
The problem arising from the outbreak of Covid-19 is the great alteration of breathing that it generates related to the high stay in ICUs. Before the crisis, Madrid had about 400 ICU beds. Therefore, the first measures are focused on expanding the demand for ventilators for the ICU due to the shortage caused by high world demand. 20% of the patients infected with the coronavirus have a significant pulmonary disorder that requires hospitalization. A large number of the cases lead to respiratory failure, which requires ventilatory support.
Given the high demand for ICU beds, in this extraordinary circumstance, a greater number of resources are required for treating all patients. Hospitals and communities are claiming teams of artificial fans in a surge. However, there are no such on ‘stock’. For this reason, hospitals are already beginning to understand how to optimize the use of ventilators in ICUs, limiting the effort to patients who are older or with less probability of survival to avoid the collapse of the ICU. New York City alone has already estimated that it will need more than 30,000 respirators to cope with the expected avalanche of sufferers.
The Open Ventilator is an initiative of Celera, a national network of young talents. The engineer Javier González, a member of Celera, with the support of the Rey Juan Carlos University, who has made all the resources available to the team so that this project could go ahead in record time, has led the project. The project has had the voluntary involvement of a group of medical experts from Hospital 12 de Octubre.
In total, more than 30 people from different fields such as engineering, medicine, computer science, design, entrepreneurship, legal and data, have joined forces and knowledge to complete the design of a fully functional fan prototype in less than a week.