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As NASA says, they generally build spaceships and not medical devices. But it turns out that when they decide to make one, they do it quite well. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has developed a fan as the world struggles to control COVID, or the coronavirus pandemic. The new fan from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is called VITAL, which stands for Locally Accessible Fan Intervention Technology.
NASA says VITAL can be used to free traditional ventilators for patients with more severe cases of COVID in the US. USA “We specialize in spacecraft, not medical device manufacturing,” said JPL director Michael Watkins. “But excellent engineering, rigorous testing, and rapid prototyping are some of our specialties. When the people at JPL realized that they might have what it takes to support the medical community and the community at large, they felt it was their duty to share their ingenuity, experience and drive. ”
VITAL has a design that allows flexibility of use, which makes it relevant for temporary hospitals, health centers that no longer have enough medical equipment and also for first responders, for example.
In fact, VITAL passed a key test at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, prior to the approval process of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). “We are very pleased with the results of the tests we perform in our high-fidelity human simulation laboratory,” said Dr. Matthew Levin, Director of Innovation for the Human Simulation Laboratory and Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, Preoperative and Pain Medicine. , and Genetics. and Genomic Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine. “The NASA prototype performed as expected in a wide variety of simulated patient conditions. The team is confident that the VITAL ventilator will be able to safely ventilate patients with COVID-19 both in the United States and around the world. ”
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NASA says VITAL can be built quickly and requires less maintenance than a traditional fan. They say that VITAL requires that patients be sedated and that an oxygen tube be inserted into their airways to breathe. The new device would not replace current hospital ventilators, which can last for years and are designed to address a broader range of medical problems. Instead, VITAL is designed to last three to four months and is specifically designed for COVID-19 patients.
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