Daily Management Review

UK trials new breathing aid developed by Mercedes Formula One


03/30/2020


A new breathing aid to replace ventilators in UCLH in a trial phase, which has created within a week’s time.



One team of “Mercedes Formula One” developed a new type of “breathing aid” for helping the victims of coronavirus outbreak. The said breathing aid was prepared within a week’s time and it has gone for hospitals trials the London.
 
In a “more invasive process”, Italy as well as China used the “Continuous Positive Airway Pressure”, in short CPAP, devices for facilitating the patients’ breathing without putting them on a ventilator instead they delivered “air and oxygen under pressure to patients’ lungs”. However, the new models of CPAP has been approved by the regulators and one hundred such machines were sent to the “University College London Hospital for trials”.
 
According to reports, 50% of patients that were given CPAP, didn’t need “invasive mechanical ventilation” thus abolishing the hassle of sedating the patients while “freeing up ventilators for those more in need”. In the words of the “UCLH critical care consultant”, Professor Mervyn Singer:
“These devices will help to save lives by ensuring that ventilators, a limited resource, are used only for the most severely ill”.
“We hope they will make a real difference to hospitals across the UK by reducing demand on intensive care staff and beds, as well as helping patients recover without the need for more invasive ventilation.”
 
Along with the “Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains” team, the engineers as well as the clinicians of UCLH worked to create the breathing aid.  The director of “UCL Institute of Healthcare Engineering”, Professor Rebecca Shipley noted that the risk of the healthcare workers getting affected from the CPAC, given the chance of “contaminated droplets” escaping from the device, was “very low” provided the workers wear “appropriate personal protective equipment”.
 
Moreover, she also informed that the new device could be generated at a large scale within a less time, as she added:
“Mercedes can make 1,000 a day within a week, and if the tests go well they can be in the NHS by the end of this week”.
 
From the initial discussion to the production of the first device, the new breathing aids were completed within less than hundred hours. Furthermore, the “Oxford Optronix” team is also part of the project as the latter with build the “oxygen monitors for the CPAP devices”.
 
 
References:
reuters.com