But it is regarded as a last resort, in part because different patients typically require different ventilator settings.
team, led by Shriya Srinivasan, a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, showed how, with a few parts that are commonly found in hospital supplies, the airflow from a ventilator could be split in two while accommodating different settings for each patient.
McDonald’s team, would be a better alternative, “with supply-chain issues it’s just not clear that it would get to people by the time they need it.†The group has launched a not-for-profit effort dubbed Project Prana that aims to make kits available to hospitals in the developing world where there could be a rapid increase in demand for ventilators due to COVID-19.
Slutsky is a co-author on the Canadian study, which offers a somewhat different approach to ventilator sharing that would allow the settings between the two patients to be controlled automatically and protect one patient if the other were to become disconnected.
He added that because of COVID-19 there has been a growing public realization of the role of ventilators in intensive-care units and unprecedented attention to the issue of ventilator supplies during a public crisis.
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This is a space where subscribers can engage with each other and Globe staff.
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This is a space where subscribers can engage with each other and Globe staff.