Elsevier

HardwareX

Volume 9, April 2021, e00187
HardwareX

Masi: A mechanical ventilator based on a manual resuscitator with telemedicine capabilities for patients with ARDS during the COVID-19 crisis

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ohx.2021.e00187Get rights and content
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open access

Abstract

In this article, we introduce a portable and low-cost ventilator that could be rapidly manufactured, to meet the increasing demand of ventilators worldwide produced by COVID-19 pandemic. These ventilators should be rapidly deployable and with functional capabilities to manage COVID-19 patients with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Our implementation offers robustness, safety and functionality absent in existing solutions to the ventilator shortage (i.e., telemonitoring, easy-to-disinfect, modularity) by maintaining simplicity. The design makes use of a manual resuscitator as the core respiration component activated by a compression mechanism which consist of two electronically controlled paddles. The quality measurements obtained after testing on a calibrated artificial lung demonstrate repeatability and accuracy exceeding human capabilities of manual ventilation. The complete design files are provided in the supplementary materials to facilitate ventilator production even in resource-limited settings. The implementation of this mechanical ventilator could eliminate device rationing or splitting to serve multiple patients on ICUs.

Keywords

Acute respiratory distress syndrome
COVID-19 pandemic
Critical care
Mechanical ventilation
Respiratory insufficiency

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