[新聞] 美國水稻工程師說有辦法解決呼吸器短缺
1.新聞網址︰https://reurl.cc/O1pl69
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2.新聞來源︰TexaMonthly
3.新聞內容︰
U.S. Hospitals Have a Ventilator Shortage. A Team of Rice Engineers Say They
Have a Solution.
The device they’ve designed has piqued the interest of government officials
and large manufacturers hoping to address the coronavirus crisis.
It's close to 10 p.m. on a Sunday, and a Rice University senior named Thomas
Herring is hunched over a laptop in the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen, on
the north side of campus. To his right, a black notebook full of scribblings,
its pages covered with extraterrestrial-like symbols you’d expect to find
inside an Iowa crop circle, sits open on a table. Just some “calculus and
kinematics,” the friendly 22-year-old coolly explains with a shrug.
In the past, the electrical engineering major has worked on largely
theoretical robotics and artificial intelligence projects that might be
unveiled years from now. Tonight, Herring and five other engineers are
rushing to finish a project that is arguably among the most consequential in
the world at the moment, one that could be deployed to the public as early as
next week: a $300 3D-printable automated ventilator.
If successful, the ventilation unit—a DIY device that looks like the work of
a high school robotics club—could go into mass production as early as next
week, offering hospitals around the world a way to address a ventilator
shortage that is expected to kill thousands of coronavirus patients suffering
from the respiratory illness in the coming weeks. The national stockpile has
close to 17,000 ventilators—less than a quarter of the 70,000 needed to
combat even a moderate influenza pandemic, though a severe crisis like
COVID-19 could require hundreds of thousands more, according to the New York
Times. High-quality ventilators like the kinds hospitals rely on can easily
cost $10,000 apiece. Faced with shortages, doctors might soon have to make
tough decisions about redistributing them from older patients to younger,
healthier ones, many experts believe.
Many hospitals have an abundant supply, however, of bag valve masks, which
are hand-operated ventilators that are inefficient and difficult for one
person to operate for more than an hour at a time; they require a rotation of
people to keep the patient alive. The Rice prototype automates the pumping of
the bag and can be specifically calibrated for each patient’s needs. With
mechanized bag valve masks on hand, hospitals could buy themselves some time,
allowing them to redistribute limited resources, move patients to other
facilities, or allow family members the chance to say goodbye to loved ones
who have no chance of recovery and might otherwise be taken off in-demand
machines.
The Rice team expects to have their prototype completed by Tuesday and for
human trials to be underway a day or two later. By the end of the week, they’
re aiming for something that would normally sound impossible: receiving Food
and Drug Administration approval in a matter of hours—not days or months.
“A lot of the work I do here as a student isn’t really applicable outside
the classroom setting, so it’s really cool to work on a project where the
effects are measurable in the number of lives it saves,” says Herring, who
received special permission from school administrators to work on a campus
that has been closed for the semester because of the coronavirus.
An early version of the device was designed by Rice engineering students
working on a global initiative targeting worldwide ventilator shortages in
2019, but it wasn’t ready for the real world, according to Amy Kavalewitz,
the executive director of the OEDK. As the coronavirus spread across the
globe, overwhelming hospital resources, Kavalewitz began receiving emails
from people searching for automated ventilators. So far, she’s received
nearly two hundred requests from 37 countries, many of them from technicians
and clinicians seeking the team’s blueprints.
Just over a week ago, with the requests for help pouring in, Kavalewitz
assembled a five-person team, of which Herring is the only student member, to
upgrade the machine while also building a website with instructions,
pictures, and part lists that will allow the programmable ventilator to be
reproduced elsewhere.An early version of the device was designed by Rice engineering students
working on a global initiative targeting worldwide ventilator shortages in
2019, but it wasn’t ready for the real world, according to Amy Kavalewitz,
the executive director of the OEDK. As the coronavirus spread across the
globe, overwhelming hospital resources, Kavalewitz began receiving emails
from people searching for automated ventilators. So far, she’s received
nearly two hundred requests from 37 countries, many of them from technicians
and clinicians seeking the team’s blueprints.
Just over a week ago, with the requests for help pouring in, Kavalewitz
assembled a five-person team, of which Herring is the only student member, to
upgrade the machine while also building a website with instructions,
pictures, and part lists that will allow the programmable ventilator to be
reproduced elsewhere.
4.附註、心得、想法︰
一、簡單來說，就是萊斯大學有人用 3D 列印與生活中容易取得的零件，兜出了呼吸器。
二、每具成本在 300 美元以內，還公開所有的程式碼與藍圖。
三、美國高手都在民間。
四、建議苗栗國可以準備一下學習引進，開始搞家庭代工。
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※ 文章網址: https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/HatePolitics/M.1585819701.A.6D2.html
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