MIT developing low-cost ventilators

Should help relieve shortage

As the coronavirus pandemic overloads hospitals across the country and sparks shortages of critical medical supplies and devices, a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is in the process of developing low-cost ventilators in order to help hospitals meet the growing demand for them.

The team of engineers, physicians and computer scientists began working on the project earlier this month after the university received numerous messages urging them to resume a project from decade ago, in which a group of students designed and tested an inexpensive ventilator device, but only published a paper on it, according to a statement from MIT.

Ventilators, which help patients breathe when they’re physically unable to, typically cost $30,000, according to MIT, but the university said the device they are developing could be built with about $100 worth of parts.

Specifically, MIT said the team is trying to create a mechanically operated bag-valve resuscitator, which is an inexpensive alternative to a ventilator that currently only works by being hand-operated. According to MIT, hospitals already have a large amount of these resuscitators, also known as Ambu bags, but because they need to be operated by hand and hospital workers are stretched too thin, they are not a viable replacement at the moment.

According to MIT, the team plans on releasing the design of the mechanism to hospitals across the country in order to help them rapidly scale up production.

Last week, officials from Boston hospitals told the

Herald that shortages of the device were causing them to rig new pieces of equipment together and enlist the help of 3-D printing businesses to keep up with the demand.

“All American hospitals and medical care institutions are in creative improvisation and adaptation mode,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, a Columbia University professor who runs the National Center for Disaster Preparedness.

Redlener said there are likely over 100,000 ventilators in the U.S. — with most currently in use — but, “We could well need 250K or more ventilators or many more in a full-blown pandemic. … Every hospital is struggling, and there is going to be rationing of the ventilators.”

MIT said its team is comprised entirely of volunteers, who are working on the project without funding.

CHRIS CHRISTO / HERALD STAFF FILE BRAIN TRUST: Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, are working on a plan that will let hospitals convert labor-intensive bag ventilators into mechanically operated ones for about $100 worth of parts.