[BostonCard]

One thing that I've been thinking about on ventilators is the idea of an MVP (minimal viable product).  Normally, ventilators are deliberately over-engineered; they have to be flexible enough to be used under a wide variety of circumstances and have a half-dozen modes, and of course have to be able to deal with any contingency (from a patient stopping breathing to the endotracheal tube falling out).

But these aren't normal circumstances, and the choice isn't between a fully baked ventilator and a minimally viable ventilator; they are a choice between the MVP ventilator and no ventilator.  If your goal is to produce as many ventilators as possible as fast and as cheap as possible, could you do with stripping out all but one ventilator mode (pressure support), and give the vent two controls: how much pressure to supply during inhalation and what proportion of oxygen to deliver.  Maybe you even re-purpose BiPAP devices so that they can be used as makeshift ventilators.  The point is just to keep people alive long enough to be put on a full ventilator (or to provide support once a patient is getting better as a transition to extubation).

BC

[BostonCard]

One thing that I've been thinking about on ventilators is the idea of an MVP (minimal viable product).  Normally, ventilators are deliberately over-engineered; they have to be flexible enough to be used under a wide variety of circumstances and have a half-dozen modes, and of course have to be able to deal with any contingency (from a patient stopping breathing to the endotracheal tube falling out).

But these aren't normal circumstances, and the choice isn't between a fully baked ventilator and a minimally viable ventilator; they are a choice between the MVP ventilator and no ventilator.  If your goal is to produce as many ventilators as possible as fast and as cheap as possible, could you do with stripping out all but one ventilator mode (pressure support), and give the vent two controls: how much pressure to supply during inhalation and what proportion of oxygen to deliver.  Maybe you even re-purpose BiPAP devices so that they can be used as makeshift ventilators.  The point is just to keep people alive long enough to be put on a full ventilator (or to provide support once a patient is getting better as a transition to extubation).

BC