Houston Chronicle by Gwendolyn Wu Aug. 5, 2020
For months, physicians around the world worried that the rise in COVID-19 cases would cause an international ventilator shortage as patients relied on machines to help them breathe.
Health care administrators looked to stopgap measures from reserving the ventilators for the sickest to taking patients who are near death off the ventilators to hand-pumping air into a person’s lungs.
Now, a group of Rice University researchers and a Houston manufacturing company are introducing an automated version of one type of ventilator known as a bag valve mask that could be an inexpensive solution to global shortages. Bag valve mask ventilators are traditionally hand pumped by doctors, nurses and emergency medical technicians to help patients breathe.
The manufactured version of the Rice ventilator, called the ApolloABVM, replaces human power with machine power by using electric motors and tiny, portable computers programmed to squeeze the bag at regular intervals. It offers a solution to medical professionals who would otherwise squeeze the bag for minutes, even hours, to help patients breathe while waiting for an advanced ventilator.
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https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/New-device-from-Rice-Kirby-Corp-could-ease-15464373.php
