Evaluating the Reusability of Disposable Ventilator Components

Ventilators are a necessary medical instrument, especially with the current COVID-19 pandemic. Consumable supplies used with ventilators include nasal masks that go over the nose and mouth and polymer tubes that go down the throat, aided by use of a laryngoscope instrument. Excessive demand has led to inadequate ventilator instruments and supplies and increased the challenges of cleaning these instruments and supplies, both domestically and abroad. Defining and validating protocols for reusing consumable ventilator devices could extend resources and help save lives. A risk assessment was performed on the ventilator components to find the most at risk components, and current protocols were researched to determine an effective reprocessing method. Overall, the mask and tubing contain the highest risk, and there are current cleaning methods that could be used in COVID-19 cases to reuse these components

Throughout 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected both people and healthcare systems, putting both to the limits in not only the United States, but globally as well. Specifically, the amount of ventilators available to combat the high number of cases has been in high demand.  Ventilators have many components, which can be either disposable and able to be thrown away or reused after each patient, or can be capital and used from patient to patient.  In order to allow ventilators to be readily available for patients in need without excessively high costs, it would be beneficial to reuse the disposable ventilator components.

• The components of mechanical ventilators, both reusable and disposable
• Risk assessment to determine high inherent risk of each component and ability to  be cleaned
• Evaluation of current protocols for cleaning and reprocessing
• The application of cleaning protocols in low resource settings