The current COVID-19 pandemic has heavily impacted the healthcare system in the United States and elsewhere. The need for patients to have access to a hospital with a ventilator along with a shortage of ventilators for recovery and at-home care as a result of minimal hospital vacancy for patients has been greatly stressed. The presented problem is both an unmet demand and supply of portable and effective ventilators. Existing ventilators have many shortcomings that should be addressed: size, weight, cost, and complexity of current ventilators confines users to stay in a medical facility whilst being monitored by professionals. This both increases the risk the user has of contracting other diseases and increases the cost to operate a ventilator. Therefore, there is a need to create a ventilator that is both smaller and more accessible than what is currently available.
The solution is to design a ventilator which can meet the symptoms and strains which COVID-19 can put on various individuals, should they not have access to a commercial ventilator as an economic constraint, or have restricted access to a medical facility attributed to the influx of patients. This means that a portable ventilator targeted for lower risks patients to be the ideal ventilator design. This ventilator would allow for short term out-patient care of low risk patients, thus allowing hospitals to focus on high risk patients. The lower risk patients would then be allowed to be at home and away from hospitals where both the expenses and risks of catching diseases would be higher. This would also mean that there would be greater access to care and less people denied care. While the focus is currently on COVID-19 patients, the use of the ventilator will extend to other patients who also need help breathing. The ventilator would include wireless communication, smartphone integration, and a portable power system which would allow consumers to relocate the ventilator as needed and have back-up power in the event of a power outage