Denton: With countries around the world grappling with limited ventilators amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, a team from an American University is making ventilator splitters to allow doctors to use one ventilator on two patients.
A team from the College of Engineering, University of North Texas, is using 3D printing technology to make the ventilator splitters.
Using biocompatible materials that can be sterilized for medical applications, the team printed 20 splitters in the college's digital manufacturing lab. The splitters have flow limiter inserts that allow medical providers to adjust air flow for each patient, an official release said.
"After the splitter model was tested on a hospital ventilator, the team made design modifications and had it ready for production in just two days. That is impressive," Andrey Voevodin, College of Engineering associate dean for research, was quoted by the release.
Read: COVID-19: US Researchers suggest new approach for sharing ventilators
Earlier in May, researchers, including one of Indian origin, had come up with a new approach to sharing ventilators between patients, which they believe could be used as a last resort to treat COVID-19 patients in acute respiratory distress.
The idea involves splitting air tubes into multiple branches so that two or more patients can be connected to the same machine, said Shriya Srinivasan from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) .
