Digi-Key and a team at the University of Minnesota have collaborated to ensure the open source Conventor ventilator is delivered to hospitals.
Physicians at the University of Minnesota, partnered with companies to develop the Conventor ventilator, which can be used to monitor more than one patient at at time. It was created in response to the shortage of ventilators as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold.As the supply of automatic ventilators ran out, hospitals were using an Ambu bag to perform manual compression on respiratory patients. This was done by a trained member of staff squeezing and releasing the bag, which was physically exhausting.The compact Coventor is an open source ventilator that is believed to be the first to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration under its emergency use authorisation for the Covid-19 outbreak. The design will allow a trained person to monitor more than one patient simultaneously.Initially, the University physicians contacted Digi-Key engineers for advice to ensure they could receive the parts they needed for the ventilator. The distributor assigned a team of engineers to this project who focused on identifying parts and addressing supply chain issues, including identifying vendors who could provide the needed components with a much quicker turnaround time than normal. For example, an engineer determined which cable assemblies and parts were needed and sent them overnight.Digi-Key has also supplied components for other medical devices in this pandemic, including those for forehead thermometers, touch-free hand sanitiser dispensers and equipment used to work remotely.
Source: This news is taken from www.electronicsweekly.com
