USF Students Set Sights on Ending the Worldwide Ventilator Shortage

Biomedical engineering graduates from the University of South Florida showcase their patent-pending, co-ventilator prototype. While existing devices are suited to split airflow between multiple patients, the "Eucovent" device is the first with customization capabilities.

“I think what stood out most was how relevant a topic ventilation was at the time, and still is today,” said USF student, Jacob Yarinsky  . “Especially with what you saw happening around the world with COVID-19 and hospitals not having enough ventilators for the numbers of patients they were treating. The project seemed extremely relevant and meaningful.”

Transcript

00:00:01 Right now, and especially with the COVID pandemic,  there's a ventilator shortage. We've also seen these ventilator shortages in other scenarios like during natural disasters and in military settings. But basically, there aren't enough ventilators and  so by increasing the number of patients that can   be treated with one ventilator, you're increasing  the amount of patients that can be treated. Together with our mentors at Moffitt, we developed  a device that could do that in a really unique way. The Eucovent is a device that  allows healthcare providers   to co-ventilate two or more patients  using a single ventilator machine. Our device addresses problems that came up  with previous solutions for co-ventilation by giving the patients personalized breaths. Our device uses a novel time multiplexing approach,   where a ventilator works double-time but our  device alternates breaths between each patient. 

00:01:00 So, because it's alternating it's effectively like  each patient's getting ventilated independently. This project required work in a  lot of different fields. We worked in coding, we worked with a microcontroller and  a lot of electronic components, we worked with   designing things on SolidWorks in CAD and 3D  printing them.   Being a Biomedical Engineering undergraduate, this project really merged the two concepts of medicine and engineering.   The end goal, of course, is to get the device to the clinical  settings so patients can actually benefit from it. To have the impact to potentially save  someone's life it's a really cool feeling to   have and that's why i definitely  got into Biomedical Engineering.