Mechanical-Ventilation Supply and Options for the COVID-19 Pandemic. Leveraging All Available Resources for a Limited Resource in a Crisis.
Abstract
The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has exposed critical supply shortages both in the United States and worldwide, including those in intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital bed supply, hospital staff, and mechanical ventilators. Many of those who are critically ill have required days to weeks of supportive invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) as part of their treatment. Previous estimates set the U.S. availability of mechanical ventilators at approximately 62,000 full-featured ventilators, with 98,000 non-full-featured devices (including noninvasive devices). Given the limited availability of this resource both in the United States and in low- and middle-income countries, we provide a framework to approach the shortage of IMV resources. Here we discuss evidence and possibilities to reduce overall IMV needs, discuss strategies to maximize the availability of IMV devices designed for invasive ventilation, discuss the underlying methods in the literature to create and fashion new sources of potential ventilation that are available to hospitals and front-line providers, and discuss the staffing needs necessary to support IMV efforts. The pandemic has already pushed cities like New York and Boston well beyond previous ICU capa...Continue Reading
References
Rapid establishment of an ICU using anesthesia ventilators during COVID-19 pandemic: lessons learned
Citations
Related Concepts
Related Feeds
American Thoracic Association Journals
Discover the latest respiratory research published by the journals from the American Thoracic Society.