[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I pulled this from a call to Rush on March 30. Rush didn’t let him finish his pitch because “anybody can call and say anything” and he didn’t want to risk being taken in by a con artist.

Here is "an article is written by Dr. Laura Lund, Director of Scientific Affairs at ALung Technologies, in response to Medgadget’s invitation to explain the nature of the company’s Hemolung CO2 removal technology and how it can benefit patients.”

What I’d like to see in addition is as firm bid on the cost and schedule of the production of 1000 units.

[dynoman]

We’re not going to have a problem with ventilators. We’ve got close to 200K available!

“Supply of mechanical ventilators in U.S. acute care hospitals: Based on a 2009 survey of AHA hospitals, U.S. acute care hospitals are estimated to own approximately 62,000 full-featured mechanical ventilators.10,11 Approximately 46% of these can be used to ventilate pediatric and neonatal patients. Additionally, some hospitals keep older models for emergency purposes. Older models, which are not full featured but may provide basic functions, add an additional 98,738 ventilators to the U.S. supply.10 The older devices include 22,976 noninvasive ventilators, 32,668 automatic resuscitators, and 8567 continuous positive airway pressure units.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) and other ventilator sources: The SNS has an estimated 12,700 ventilators for emergency deployment, according to recent public announcements from National Institutes of Health officials.12 These devices are also not full featured but offer basic ventilatory modes. In simulation testing they performed very well despite long-term storage.13 Accessing the SNS requires hospital administrators to request that state health officials ask for access to this equipment. SNS can deliver ventilators within 24-36 hours of the federal decision to deploy them. States may have their own ventilator stockpiles as well.14 Respiratory therapy departments also rent ventilators from local companies to meet either baseline and/or seasonal demand, further expanding their supply. Additionally, many modern anesthesia machines are capable of ventilating patients and can be used to increase hospitals’ surge capacity.

The addition of older hospital ventilators, SNS ventilators, and anesthesia machines increases the absolute number of ventilators to possibly above 200,000 units nationally. Many of the additional and older ventilators, however, may not be capable of sustained use or of adequately supporting patients with severe acute respiratory failure. Also, supplies for these ventilators may be unavailable due to interruptions in the international supply chain. Alternatively, ventilator manufacturers could be encouraged to rapidly produce modern full-featured ventilators to allow experienced clinicians to use supplemental ventilators that are familiar to them and can be readily incorporated into the hospital ventilator fleet and informatics systems. An analysis of the literature suggests, however, that U.S. hospitals could absorb a maximum of 26,000 to 56,000 additional ventilators at the peak of a national pandemic, as safe use of ventilators requires trained personnel.15”

https://sccm.org/Blog/March-2020/United-States-Resource-Availability-for-COVID-19

[Mr Ramsbotham]

I was thinking the other day, why not just do the gas exchange directly, as opposed to making it work through a badly diseased lung? And of course, since it's human nature to see why a thing can't be done, as opposed to why it can be done, I thought, well, what about embolism? And so I just dismissed it.

[LeonardFMason]

How many COVID-19 patients going on ventilators are surviving?

Looking for numbers.

[paterfamilias]

I heard the call in real time. The caller to Rush described a type of venous-venous extracorporeal membrane oxygenator (ECMO).

He made it sound like a piece of cake, but in fact ECMO treatment is high tech, usually requires anticoagulation.

The device he described, Hemolung, is a low-flow device, which removes CO2 well, but which does not oxygenate the blood as efficiently as high-flow ECMO.

People in respiratory failure from pneumonia-ARDS have trouble with exchange of both O2 and CO2. It is not clear to me that such a device would obviate the need for a ventilator.

[PresidentFelon]

Actually, this has the potential to be much more effective than a ventilator.

I watched a video of a doctor from New York City that has been treating covid-19 patients and he said that ventilators simply weren’t working and far too many people being put on ventilators were dying. He believes that ventilators seem to make the problem worse because they were stressing the lungs.

This doctor says his patients were showing the tell-tale signs of hypoxia and we’re not exhibiting the usual signs of distress common to patients on ventilators. He believes that the red blood cells in patients simply weren’t absorbing the oxygen being fed into the lungs and transporting it. He was calling for the medical community to take a completely different look at how they are using ventilators and change the current treatment protocol.

If a Hemolung device can feed oxygen directly into the heart, it might save patients by creating a more efficient process of oxygenation, reducing the strain and damage to the lungs and preventing the patient from having to expend so much energy to breathe.

[TexasGator]

“So these patients can be ambulatory. They can walk around. They can eat. “

From what I see, COVID patients that need to go on ventilators have pretty much one outcome.

[Right Wing Assault]

Here's a new version of the "iron lung" of the 50s when polio was paralyzing some people so they couldn't walk and even breathe. It covers only part of the body. Picture at the link.

https://marshalladg.com/insights-news/rapid-reinvention-of-iron-lung-could-save-thousands-of-lives

[PGalt]

Thanks for the information and to all posters.

[MachIV]

I use CPAP. I cannot really imagine it would take the place of a ventilator...or would it?