NASA team developed a ventilator tailored for coronavirus patients in 37 days!
27 Apr, 2020The engineers at NASA have developed a high-pressure ventilator prototype specifically tailored to help coronavirus patients, according to the agency.
It's called VITAL, or Ventilator Intervention Technology Accessible Locally. And after passing a critical test at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York earlier this week, NASA is hoping for fast-track approval of the ventilator in the coming days so it can be used to help coronavirus patients.
"We were very pleased with the results of the testing we performed in our high-fidelity human simulation lab," said Dr. Matthew Levin, director of innovation for the Human Simulation Lab and associate professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine, and genetics and genomics sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine, in a statement.
"The NASA prototype performed as expected under a wide variety of simulated patient conditions. The team feels confident that the VITAL ventilator will be able to safely ventilate patients suffering from Covid-19 both here in the United States and throughout the world."
The prototype works like traditional ventilators, where sedated patients rely on an oxygen tube to help them breathe. But it's built to last three or four months unlike ventilators in hospitals that were designed to last for years and help patients with other medical issues. The engineers hope that more traditional ventilators can be freed up for patients with the most severe cases of coronavirus if VITAL is put into place.
The innovative ventilator was also designed to offer more oxygen at higher pressures than typical models because Dr. Levin said some of the patients he's treating needed that capability.
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