If you are building vents, please consider submitting your plan to the DoD:

https://vulcan-sof.com/login/ng2/submission?collectionUuid=2...

What is Vulcan and how is their elaborate signup/info requirement justified?

It's a marketplace for innovators and special operating forces (SOF) who have requirements, a place where the parties can resolve their mismatches. The signup process has to strongly credential the various types of users with legally binding access controls.

In practice it's much easier to move the patient to the ventilator than vice versa, and that's exactly what happens, at least in my country

So for most of the rest of the world, moving sick patients across political boundaries is going to be a hot potato nobody will touch. Autoclaving some medical equipment and dropping it off somewhere else is probably much easier.

And then there are the problems of the ridiculously huge countries, like China, the US, or Brazil, that most of the rest of the world simply fail to fathom the enormity of distance-based logistical problems. Two of the largest cities in just the contiguous United States are 4 and a half hours apart at the speed of sound, and there's a bigass mountain range in the middle that you can't fly around. And it looks like a medical helicopter would take about 3 times as long, so moving sick people is a multiple of moving equipment. Even New York City to Chicago would handily kill a patient drowning in their own fluids before they arrived, and most first world countries are wider across than that.

I know that "hosting and much more is still TBD," but I can contribute a pretty snappy VM on a 1G symmetrical Internet/Internet2 connection. How do I do that?

You can request to join by opening an issue here: https://github.com/openventilatorregistry/OpenVentilatorRegi...

Not sure this will work in practise. What hospital administrator will want to send away their limited supply of ventilators in the current environment?

Original idea: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/opinion/health/ventilator...

During a crisis like this, the idea is to pool resources and create a nimble distribution network. Hospitals that don’t need their ventilators can share them, and if they need them they’ll know where to request them.

The problem is every hospital is forecasting a dire need for ventilators in the next few weeks. COVID patients can take up a vent for nearly 3 weeks. Any vent that's sent to another hospital right now will likely be gone for the entire duration of this outbreak.

Anecdotally, my wife's hospital, in a rural county with 1 case, is already at ICU capacity and pushing the limit on vents.

Agreed this seems problematic and a significant challenge. Hopefully as the shock has worn off and a clearer picture emerges in the coming months there will be greater willingness to cooperate.

I can add my own anecdotal evidence. My wife is an RN on a pulmonary floor of a hospital in a major metropolitan area. They are already at capacity and have few coronavirus cases.

I feel like this is just going to end up being a website with no usage because no one has spare ventilators. But I really hope they prove me wrong.

First of all, big shout out to the Open Ventilation Registry crew! The registry will be quite useful.

There's an a small global army of biomedical engineers, ICU doctors, programmers etc. working very hard to have rapidly manufactured ventilators designed, approved, and manufactured. I've seen some of the designs and they're elegant, simple, just work. Yeah, they need fine tuning but that's part of the process.

Humans are insanely awesome when they collaborate.

Hang in there humanity.

Do you plan on this being a registry for US only, or you are planning to have this as an international registry?

Do you have any experience in supply chain logistics, the medical industry, incident response?

There are already established systems. How will yours interface with the existing / international norms?

I was trying something but found it difficult to pull through. If this can help someone. Had some specs in place https://github.com/covid19-india/supplychain/wiki/Software-R...

So what's the administrative process of transferring a ventilator from one hospital to another like? Is there any precedent for this? I could see this kind of thing working in a socialized healthcare system but in the US wouldn't it create all kinds of liability and insurance problems?

According to the Society of Critical Care Medicine, the United States has more than 200,000 available ventilators. However we have less than 50,000 staff trained in mechanical ventilation that can support a maximum of 125,000 patients. Furthermore, we only have 90,000 ICU beds to put patients in.

Yes the media is telling you there is a shortage, they don't understand that the problem isn't a lack of machines.

50k staff and that can only support 125k patients?

So you are saying a person trained on the use of a ventilator can only support a little over 2 patients on a ventilator? Are they sitting between the beds and pedaling the machine?

These are $30k machines. I would think, especially in a crisis situation, a single medical professional could probably handle a few dozen people on ventilators if they had too.

> So you are saying a person trained on the use of a ventilator can only support a little over 2 patients on a ventilator?

As I mentioned in the comment you replied to, the numbers are from the SCCM. You aren't going to find a more authoritative source for accurate information.

> I would think, especially in a crisis situation, a single medical professional could probably handle a few dozen people on ventilators if they had too

If you don't believe the SCCM, California law and the California Respiratory Care Board set the requirement as "a ratio of 1:4 or fewer each shift."

Short of a Cardiopulmonary Bypass Machine (basically a mechanical heart), invasive ventilation is one of the most intensive "intensive care" treatments, requiring constant monitoring and adjustment.

Im sure 1 to 4 is best case and best practice. In an emergency, I guarantee someone can and will handle more.

Additionally, the 1 to 4 ratio doesn't match with the 50k number.

Not if they’re intubated; they’re very time consuming for the nursing/care staff.