COVID-19 HALO open source ventilator

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The Covid-19 pandemic has led to health system crises around the globe. Patients with Covid-19 demonstrate oxygenation impairment and lung injury with severe cases requiring ventilatory support. The treatment of choice for patients who reach a critical state is positive pressure ventilation provided by standard critical care ventilators which are in limited supply. The manufacturers of these standard ventilators are unable to produce them in sufficient numbers for the surge in demand because of their complicated design and manufacturing. As a result, ventilator shortages have become a problem worldwide. In response, teams of engineers and physicians have developed high acuity, limited operability (HALO) ventilator systems whose designs allow for inexpensive and rapid manufacturing and are often under an open-source license. These devices provide automated positive pressure ventilatory support tailored to the specific needs of Covid-19-affected patients. These HALO designs use readily available off-the shelf components and are designed for easy manufacturing and rapid production. Unfortunately, many of these designs are in their early stages and have not undergone thorough clinical testing. Our project combines the expertise of physicians and engineers from the University of Toronto and Toronto General Hospital/University Health Network with individuals who have extensive experience in private medical device design, prototyping and manufacturing. This expertise will be used to create one prototype for testing, validation, and exploration of initial manufacturing partners to allow for rapid manufacturing of the validated design. These designs will be made available online under open-source GNU APLv3 and Creative Commons Share-alike licensing terms for local manufacturing in health systems around the world.