Comment by TaylorAlexander | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TaylorAlexander | Hacker News Reader

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TaylorAlexander

HI! I’m a robotics engineer with mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, Linux and embedded programming skills, and I have 8 3D printers at home including two Prusa printers, a high resolution resin printer, and a large format printer.

I’d really like to help! But there’s no central organization for this. I think we have to quickly organize ourselves!

If anyone has any ideas please add them here in these hacker news comments, AND/OR I’ve just created a thread on my website which we can use for focused discussion: https://reboot.love/t/coronavirus-thread/281

I’m working from home and have some freedom to delay my normal work and assist with this. What should I do? Is it ventilators that are most obviously needed?

We could 3D print the air pumps, but where do we get a vast supply of cheap motors? Or in another case hospitals just needed replacement parts for existing ventilators. How do we get in touch with hospitals and determine their needs? People have also suggested multiple people can be connected to one ventilator with some success. Could we make an adapter to help with that? How would we determine requirements?

The bottleneck with distributing new ventilators isn't physically producing them - it is getting them tested and approved by the FDA.

So the use-case here is people putting their loved ones on these ventilators at home because the hospitals are full (which is entirely possible).

Ideally, we should be working with existing ventilator manufacturers in the US to have them increase their current output.

If that's the case we need a whole DIY course of treatment, not just the machine itself. Playing doctor with only the tools and none of the rest is going to be a losing game. :(

1. There’s no treatment other than supportive care.

2. Ventilators aren’t dumb iron lung machines. Current ventilators are large, complex and very much specialized machines which require special training to operate.

Once you get to the point you need a ventilator the ventilator is the least of your problems.

"Supportive care" is not something I or most people know how to offer. That's my point. What does supportive care consist of? For example, I know from reading the news that pronating ventilated patients is considered preferable. What else?

But really, I think this "home care in case the hospitals are full" thing is a pipe dream. A uniquely American pipe dream. For one thing, how are you going to hydrate and feed your loved one while they're on your homemade ventilator? Do you know how to insert an IV? Do you have saline solution on-hand? Ventilated patients in the hospital are being sedated, to my understanding. Do you have an anesthetist on hand to manage that? Etc. The American impulse to independence and prepping is so silly sometimes.

The only practical use for these ventilators is in a hospital context, employed by real doctors and nurses. And then only if the number of available ventilators ends up being the bottleneck (as opposed to the amount of healthcare worker labor available or some other factor). Any other imagined use is just a safety blanket, IMO.

You forgot the Respiratory Therapists.

As a former respiratory therapist I understand you concern about a project like this. I doubt anything beyond a CPAP machine is helpful for home care without risking a ventilator lung injury which is often characterized as the same lung pathology that COVID-19 creates in the acute respiratory cases.

That said, at home you could help at home patients relieve some symptoms until proper medical attention is available by doing positive breath holding exercises and chest percussion therapy to recruit more alveolar activity.

Paging Dr. Scott Weingart

https://emcrit.org/emcrit/some-additional-covid-airway-manag...

I just wonder to what extent an emergency would change that situation. Let’s say I had a really nicely working design that some medical professionals helped test. Let’s say I was able to fabricate hundreds of them. I feel like some emergency exemptions could be offered if the alternative is people dying due to lack of ventilators.

FYI, I tried to comment on the thread you linked, but it does not allow me to make a new user and then comment. Using Chrome on a Mac.

Hmm. I'll have to look in to that. Thanks. :-/

Thank you so much. Ive just done some server maintenance and tried the new user flow with another email address. I was able to sign up, confirm my email, log in and post. Hopefully it’s fixed now.

Also I’ve worked out a potentially simple functional solution. I’m going to try to make a YouTube video to appeal for input.

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