Q-VENT Lung Ventilator

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  Q-VENT Team

Inspiration

We are a professional team of Slovak biomedical scientists, physicians, medical students and entrepreneurs, who have developed the Q-Vent as an alternative facility to the artificial lung ventilations (ALV). Started a month ago, we realized that the corona virus which was actually hitting hard Italy, was causing many deaths because of missing artificial lung ventilations. Therefore we decided to accept the challenge to develop easy to produce, low cost and fully functional artificial lung ventilation Q-Vent which could save thousands of lives and could offer the necessary "bridge infrastructure" to the hospitals to better fight this pandemic.

What it does

Q-Vent artifical lung ventilation is an alternative facility to the artificial lung ventilations (ALV). The primary role of the Q-vent is to bridge the period of up to 24 hours, while the patient needs an oxygen support but no “standard” ALV is available for any reason. This machine is built on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology open-source model and it has passed the stress tests on a simulator at the Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. It has following main features: 1) The oxygen fraction in exhaled gas mixture of 100% to 30%. 2) The inspiration pressure of 10-40 cmH2O (peak) with safety valve setting. 3) Maintained airway pressure (plateau) with safety valve setting up to 30 cmH2O. 4) Positive end-respiratory pressure (PEEP) in the range of 5 to 15 cmH2O that could be solved by mechanical valve replacement. 5) The inspiration / expiration ratio that can be regulated. 6) Breath rate of 12 to 25, the only mode - CMV (continual mandatory ventilation) – is possible to use. 7) The breath volume adjustable as needed, for the adults in the range of 250 mL to 700 mL (800 mL) at least. 8) The inhaled gas mixture humidification and heating is provided. 9) The smart sensor to detect coughing (patient wake up) is present. The production cost is not more than 150 EURO and it's easy to produce (up to 30 pcs/day).

How we built it

Started exactly a month ago, after having produced the first functional prototype in 5 days, we move into the serial production stage, able to produce up to 30pcs/day. We used components which are easily to procure and source on the market and at the same time are already certified for a medical use (medical components), so it's easy to plug it in into the existing infrastructure in the hospitals. We did stress tests which proved that the machine can work with the min.cycle of 48 hours and the machine has passed the British RMVS compliance validation tests.

Challenges we ran into

We successfully tested our machine on the simulation tests but now we need to move it to the next stage - the clinical trials with real patients. To do this, we need to get the machine certified from local regulation authority or to receive the exemption in order to install it and test it with our team of doctors and technicians with the real patients.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We have produced 5pcs of the fully functional and tested lung ventilators and our production can run up to 30pcs/day. Our machines have been offered as a part of the humanitarian aid from Slovak Republic to Italy. Thanks to the support of our government, we want to offer them immediately to the developing countries who are potentially most impacted by COVID-19. We got full support from the President of the Slovak Republic as well as from the central crisis unit of the government. Our invention has been mentioned by leading Slovak press media: tech.sme.sk etrend.sk pravda.sk TV Markiza

What we learned

Focus on MPV, so you can build fast the product which is needed and do not try to solve many issues at once. We did it with rapid prototyping method and by using iterative innovation by listening to the medical experts (anesthesiologists, infectionologist etc.).

What's next for Q-Vent

We are ready for full scale production but before that, we urgently need to get the machine certified for CE Health, than for British and US norms (FDA) in order to be able to provide it to the most demanding regions in the world.