Ventilators...?

Sabertooth said:

I have a question for the medical professionals, here.

Since there is a shortage of ventilators in this current pandemic, can a CPAP/BiPAP be configured into a makeshift ventilator?

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While I am a medical professional as an EMT, I'm not sure that it works like that.
Ventilators require monitoring of how much oxygen is within the patient's lungs. CPAP and BiPAP as far as I know are unable to do that. I think it also needs to monitor the Co2 levels, which they cannot do as far as I know.

Along the same lines I was wondering if one ventilator could be outfitted to serve two or three patients vs just one patient ! I know they aren't plumbed for more than one person but could they be ? It would probably need to be an older design, modern ones are all computerized.

Dave G. said:

Along the same lines I was wondering if one ventilator could be outfitted to serve two or three patients vs just one patient ! I know they aren't plumbed for more than one person but could they be ?

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Again, I'm not sure. Vents are above my pay grade. I have been around them, but medics control them or respiratory techs/nurses.

Good questions!

You can configure certain BiPAP machines to act as ventilators using extremely tight fitting masks. However, most are not programmed with this functionality. Ventilators use positive pressure to achieve certain tidal volumes per breath, while CPAP and BiPAP establish baseline pressures in the system, but still require the patient to instigate the breathing. Their purpose is really to overcome alveolar atelectasis or obstruction in the airway, so they don't deliver specific volumes as needed. They can be of value in some cases though, but if you need ventilation proper, they won't cut it.

You can configure one ventilator to ventilate up to about 4 people, as shown in simulations. Precious little human data though. My hospital has considered it if push comes to shove. Here is a video on it, though it basically just shows how to set up the circuit, so is probably a bit boring for laypeople: