WZZM 13: Autocam Medical to Manufacture University of Michigan and Makemedical Device Allowing Multiple Patients to Use Same Ventilator with Individual Pressure
When experts predicted a surge in COVID-19 cases and possible ICU equipment shortages, University of Michigan healthcare workers started making a controlled way to expand ventilator capacity.
Now, U-M and Michigan Medicine researchers invented an individualized vent-splitter that may allow multiple patients to receive customized pressures while sharing a ventilator.
U-M has filed for patent protection on the technology and a local start-up, MakeMedical, LLC, has liscensed the technology and developed it into the VentMITM device.
The device has been tested on animals and received emergency use authorization from the FDA.
“It has taken relentless positive action by a large number of individuals all motivated by the common good to make this happen,” says Glenn Green, M.D., a pediatric otolaryngologist at Michigan Medicine C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and co-developer of the technology.
The team has spent the last few weeks using in-house 3D printing to produce multiple prototypes. test them on machines in a hospital operating room, and evaluate how the technology worked on pigs.
The FDA’s emergency authorization means the device can be used on humans if needed.
“We have been working 24/7 to develop a system that could at least double ventilator capacity,” says Michigan Medicine otolaryngologist Kyle VanKoevering, M.D., who is also an associate faculty member in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Michigan Engineering.
