Extract
During health crises, including terrorist attacks or pandemics like coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the number of mechanical ventilators might fall short of the number of patients with severe respiratory failure [1–3]. A possible emergency solution is to ventilate multiple patients with one ventilator. Sharing ventilators was applied anecdotally during the 2017 Las Vegas (USA) shootings and has raised interest in lay media with the current COVID-19 pandemic [4]. However, ventilating two patients with one ventilator can be dangerous when incorrectly applied. Different setups have been published online, but none have reported any technical safety testing.
Abstract
With a modified circuit, it is feasible to ventilate two patients with one ventilator over a relevant range of compliances. Adding inspiratory resistance allows individual titration of tidal volume, and incorporating one-way valves prevents pendelluft. https://bit.ly/3ex8SYP
Footnotes
Author contributions: F.H.C. de Jongh, H.J. de Vries, L.M.A. Heunks, R. Verdaasdonk and J. Doorduin conceived and designed the study; F.H.C. de Jongh, H.J. de Vries, R.S.P. Warnaar, R. Verdaasdonk and J. Doorduin acquired the data; F.H.C. de Jongh, R.S.P. Warnaar and J. Doorduin analysed the data; F.H.C. de Jongh, H.J. de Vries, R.S.P. Warnaar, E. Oppersma, L.M.A. Heunks, R. Verdaasdonk and J. Doorduin interpreted the data; and F.H.C. de Jongh, H.J. de Vries, R.S.P. Warnaar, E. Oppersma, L.M.A. Heunks, R. Verdaasdonk and J. Doorduin drafted and revised the manuscript.
Conflict of interest: F.H.C. de Jongh has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: H.J. de Vries has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: R.S.P. Warnaar has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: E. Oppersma has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: R. Verdaasdonk has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: L.M.A. Heunks reports a grant from ZonMw (CVID technology grant from Dutch goverment) during the conduct of the study; and a grant from Liberate Medical for expiratory muscle research and a grant from Orion Pharma for a levosimendan study, outside the submitted work.
Conflict of interest: J. Doorduin has nothing to disclose.
Support statement: This study was supported by a grant from “ZonMw program Creative solutions CoVID-19” (number 5000.9953). Funding information for this article has been deposited with the Crossref Funder Registry.
- Received May 8, 2020.
- Accepted May 18, 2020.
- Copyright ©ERS 2020
This article is open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licence 4.0.