DANVILLE – Geisinger researchers have found using a single ventilator to support two patients could be feasible in crisis situations involving a ventilator shortage. Geisinger announced Wednesday a team of its clinical investigators partnered with Bucknell University and Kitware, a New York-based software research and development company.
Studies created whole-body physiological simulations of 287 COVID-19 patients with varying lung function and oxygen saturation index that could be successfully managed using a dedicated ventilator. The team then used software to calculate outcomes for all possible modeled patient pairings to project the success of using a shared ventilator for each pair.
However, researchers say sharing ventilators should still be considered a last-resort approach.
