
As most of us know, the primary reason for social distancing is to slow down the rate of infections in our communities, which will have the effect of not overwhelming our hospitals. Preventing our hospitals from overload will ensure that there are sufficient hospital beds and mechanical ventilators available for the critically ill. While social distancing will very likely be effective in most regions of our country, there are other regions that waited too long to implement and are already beginning to see the impacts on hospitals. We are trying to avoid forcing doctors to choose which patients get ventilated and which do not. This would mean that the patient who does not get the ventilator will surely perish. This sounds far fetched but it has been happening for over a month in Italy already, causing hundreds if not thousands of deaths, which can be directly attributed to a shortage of mechanical ventilators n particular, but also due to a major shortage of hospital beds and medical providers.
Thankfully, manufacturing of distribution of ventilators have gone into high gear, and the FDA just granted emergency approval for a device that converts one ventilator machine into the equivalent of four ventilator machines. It is a relatively simple valve device that connects the mechanical ventilator to four different tubes, which can be used for four patients at a time. While this is highly suboptimal, with regard to adapting the settings so that each patient can be managed according to their own ventilation requirements, the ability to increase ventilator capacity is of utmost importance right now and may very well may save thousands of lives.
Check out the device at the following website.
Take a look at our Covid-Page for a volume of fact-checked authoratative information about Covid-19.
Have a peak at our ultra-thin and durable Medication-Cards for the wallet.
Read about our work helping patients Negotiate Medical Bills and other components of our Patient Advocacy.
Justin Groode MD | Patient Advocate Alliance LLC