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Showing results for tags 'Ventilators'.
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Content ArticleThis article, published by the American Association for Respiratory Care, discusses a Ventilator Training Alliance (VTA) that has been formed by several of the world’s ventilator manufacturers. The VTA has partnered with Allego to create a mobile app that frontline medical providers can use to access a centralised repository of ventilator training resources. To download the Ventilator Training Alliance knowledge hub app and to watch a video of it in action, please follow the link.
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News Article
Coronavirus: 'I'm the nurse who switches off the ventilator'
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Having access to a ventilator can mean the difference between life and death for patients who are seriously ill with COVID-19, but sometimes even these breathing machines cannot save someone's life. Juanita Nittla is a chief nurse in the intensive care unit (ICU) at London's Royal Free Hospital, and has been working for the NHS as an intensive care specialist nurse for the past 16 years. Switching off ventilators is part of Juanita's job. The work is traumatic and painful, the 42-year-old says. "Sometimes I feel like I am somewhat responsible for someone's death." Medical teams face tough decisions about when to stop treatment for patients who aren't getting better. The decision is made after careful consideration, analysing factors such as the age of the patient, underlying health conditions, their response to the virus and likelihood of recovery. Read full story Source: BBC News, 20 April 2020 -
Content Article
On 30 March, in response to the UK Government asking for business to provide thousands of ventilators to help tackle the Covid-19 pandemic, Patient Safety Learning published a blog with recommendations to ensure that ventilators are ‘safe in use’ (this means making sure they are as intuitive and easy to use for frontline staff as possible, reducing the potential for error).[1] In that blog, we outlined how we had brought together human factors/ergonomics and clinical experts to discuss the design, development and use of the equipment. -
News Article
Game-changing ventilators have yet to be given approval by medical regulator
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
None of the new life-saving mechanical ventilators ordered last month to cope with the increase in coronavirus patients has so far been awarded safety approval. Models by manufacturers such as Dyson have yet to get the green light from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the Financial Times reported. It comes a month after the Government issued a rallying cry to put non-medical manufacturers such as Dyson on a "war footing" to make additional machines. The lag is thought to be due in part to changing clinical understanding of how best to manage the virus. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 14 April 2020 -
News Article
80% of coronavirus patients on ventilators in New York die
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Eight in ten coronavirus patients placed on ventilators in New York City have died, according to officials. New York state has recorded more cases than any country other than America itself. The tally rose by 10,000 in 24 hours to 159,937, ahead of Spain and Italy, which at different times have reported the most infections in the world. The US, which now holds the position, had 463,433 confirmed cases yesterday and the national death toll was 16,504. Read full story Source: The Times. 10 April 2020 -
News ArticleDoctors seeing patients with blood oxygen levels so low they are surprised they are conscious – yet they are sitting up and talking. British and American intensive care doctors at the front line of the coronavirus crisis are starting to question the aggressive use of ventilators for the treatment of patients. In many cases, they say the machines – which are highly invasive and require the patient to be rendered unconscious – are being used too early and may cause more harm than good. Instead they are finding that less invasive forms of oxygen treatment through face masks or nasal cannulas work better for patients, even those with very low blood oxygen readings. Dr Ron Daniels, a consultant in critical care at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, on Thursday confirmed reports from US medics that he and other NHS doctors were revising their view of when ventilators should be used. Read full story Source: The Telegraph, 9 April 2020
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News ArticleShortages are dogging the fight against the coronavirus. At Bradford Royal Infirmary (BRI) it's still only possible to test six staff for the virus per day, consultants have been making their own personal protective equipment, and there's an urgent need to save oxygen. Searching for ways round the problem, Dr Tom has been working with Leeds University on a 3D-printed valve that could be attached to the hospital's ventilators to reduce the amount of oxygen they use. But he also began looking at CPAP machines used to treat sleep apnoea at home. These maintain air at a continuous pressure, inside a mask, to keep the user's airways open - they have to be repurposed to provide oxygen for use in the hospital, but they use much less of it than standard hospital ventilators. They said, 'Yes we've got 2,000, how many do you want?''' he says. "And so our plan is to start with 100 and to see whether, if we use these early enough during a patient's stay, we can prevent people deteriorating and needing to go on to the more complex ventilators, and needing to come to the intensive care unit." We've been testing them over the weekend, and there's evidence from China and from the US that they seem effective. They just help inflate your lungs and that seems to be beneficial. They are also very simple, which means that there's no need for a huge amount of training. Read full story Source: BBC News, 7 April 2020
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News Article
Design of new breathing aid developed by Mercedes to be made freely available
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The designs of a new breathing aid developed by engineers at the Mercedes F1 team, University College London (UCL), and clinicians at UCL Hospital have been made freely available to support the global response to COVID-19. It's the latest development in Formula 1’s Project Pitlane effort to help fight coronavirus. The Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) devices, which help coronavirus patients with lung infections to breathe more easily, were developed by engineers at the Mercedes team and University College London (UCL), and clinicians at UCL Hospital after a round-the-clock effort to reverse engineer a device that could be manufactured rapidly by the thousands. After patient evaluations at UCLH and across sister hospitals in the London area, the device received regulatory approval last week. An order for up to 10,000 has now been placed by the British National Health Service, and the Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains technology centre in Brixworth – the facility where the F1 team’s highly successful power units are developed and built – is now building 1,000 devices per day. Read full story Source: F1, 7 April 2020 -
Content ArticleBlog published in the Guardian from an NHS respiratory consultant.
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News Article
Virus patients more likely to die may have ventilators taken away
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Stable coronavirus patients could be taken off ventilators in favour of those more likely to survive, it emerged on Wednesday, as another sharp rise in deaths left the UK braced for the outbreak to reach up to 1,000 deaths a day by the end of the week. In a stark new document issued by the British Medical Association (BMA), doctors set out guidelines to ration care if the NHS becomes overwhelmed with new cases as the outbreak moves towards its peak. Under the proposals, designed to provide doctors with ethical guidance on how to decide who should get life-saving care when resources are overstretched, hospitals would have to impose severe limits on who is put on a ventilator. Large numbers of patients could be denied care, with those facing a poor prognosis losing the potentially life-saving equipment even if their condition is improving. The BMA suggested that younger, healthier people could be given priority over older people and that those with an underlying illness may not get treatment that could save them, with healthier patients given priority instead. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 1 April 2020 -
Content ArticleIn response to the ongoing coronavirus situation, the Government has put a call out for businesses who can provide support in the supply of ventilators and ventilator components for the healthcare system.[1] This has been met with a positive reaction from industry, with firms such as Dyson, Smiths Group and an industrial consortium (including Rolls-Royce, Airbus, McLaren, Thales, BAE Systems and Ford) responding to this.[2] Patient Safety Learning has been engaging with key leaders in Parliament, the healthcare system and international colleagues on matters in relation to patient safety during the pandemic. With forthcoming introduction of thousands of new ventilators, we have been collaborating with human factors/ergonomics experts and colleagues regarding the design and development of these. It’s important that we have ventilators. It’s important that they’re safe.
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News Article
National chiefs: Ventilators will follow ‘most immediate need’
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
National and regional NHS chiefs will seek to share out scarce ventilators to ”areas with the most immediate need, on a fair share basis relative to patient ventilation need," they have told hospital chiefs, who are increasingly concerned about what they will receive and when. Many are expecting demand for ventilated beds to outstrip what they have as the number of patients seriously ill with covid-19 ramps up. Trust leaders yesterday told HSJ they were growing increasingly worried about the lack of information over when the machines would be sent to their trusts. Some are worried London, and other regions which see their demand spike first, will get more supply. A letter from NHS England and Improvement to trust chiefs late on Wednesday told them that as “extra ventilators become available we will coordinate distribution via regional teams who will work with local health systems”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 27 March 2020 -
News Article
Coronavirus: 'Mix-up' over EU ventilator scheme
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The government says a communications mix-up meant it missed the deadline to join an EU scheme to get extra ventilators for the coronavirus crisis. Ministers were earlier accused of putting Brexit before public health when Downing Street said the UK had decided to pursue its own scheme. But No 10 now says officials did not get emails inviting the UK to join and it could join future schemes. The party's shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: "Given the huge need for PPE, testing capacity and crucial medical equipment including ventilators, people will want to know why on Monday ministers were saying they had 'chosen other routes' over the joint EU procurement initiatives but now they are claiming that they missed the relevant emails. "We need an urgent explanation from ministers about how they will get crucial supplies to the frontline as a matter of urgency." Read full story Source: BBC News, 27 March 2020 -
Content ArticleThis document should be used to guide clinicians on the appropriate use of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), non-invasive ventilation (NIV), here referring to bilevel positive airway pressure (BiPAP) and high flow nasal oxygen (HFNO, such as OptiflowTM) in patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19. Published evidence, clinical guidelines and personal communications with colleagues in China and Italy have informed this document. The guidance is not designed to be prescriptive but to provide a useful aid to use alongside clinical judgement. It can be adjusted to suit individual clinical environments. Decisions relating to the escalation of ventilatory support (whether as a trial of treatment, as a ceiling of care, or as a possible bridge to ongoing invasive ventilation) need to be made early and by experienced clinical decision-makers.
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Content ArticleThis is a specification of the minimally (and some preferred options) clinically acceptable ventilator to be used in UK hospitals during the current SARS-CoV2 outbreak. It sets out the clinical requirements based on the consensus of what is ‘minimally acceptable’ performance in the opinion of the anaesthesia and intensive care medicine professionals and medical device regulators.
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Content Article
‘Stably unstable’ – limitations with NEWS charting
Claire Cox posted an article in Blogs
In this blog, Claire discusses the use of NEWS2 in coronavirus patients and the importance of recognising, tracking and alerting the appropriate team that your patient has an increasing oxygen demand to ensure that the risk of more people being exposed to the virus is minimal. -
Content ArticleDr Gordon Caldwell, a consultant physician, questions whether he should be ventilated if gets the coronavirus. Gordon is a 64 year old in good health. But in his blog he asks us to consider whether this would be a wise action and whether more harm than good would come from ventilating him. The process of ventilation may be the most important and dangerous fomite for the current generation of healthcare staff, but by jumping to “do it all” and “have a go” we may be shooting the human race in the foot; however well intentioned the motivation. Read Gordon's full blog in the attachment below.
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Content ArticleHealthcare associated infections (HAI), such as ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), are the most common and most preventable complication of a patient’s hospital stay. Their frequency and potential adverse effects increase in critically ill patients because of impaired physiology, including a blunted immune response and multi-organ dysfunction. Traditionally, VAP rates have been measured as an indicator of quality of care. Despite recent initiatives to measure complications of mechanical ventilation and a decrease in incidence over the past few years, VAP remains an issue for critically ill adults, with mortality estimated as high as 10%. This article from Boltey et al. reviews the top five evidence-based nursing practices for reducing VAP risk in critically ill adults.
