Members：林鈺翔

With the COVID-19 pandemic raging all over the world, ventilators have become one of the most crucial medical devices, having a direct impact on whether or not the patients can have a higher chance to recover. However, due to the high price for ventilators, most hospitals in the US, as well as Europe, do not have enough ventilators to safely care for patients in need, forcing doctors to save only patients that are likely to survive. In order to stop this tragedy happening every single day,
it is necessary that we solve the problem of ventilator shortage during the pandemic.

Luckily, There have already been some open source ventilator projects around the world helping hospitals in urgent need. For example, A new high-pressure ventilator developed by NASA engineers and tailored to treat coronavirus patients has already been approved by the FDA for use under the FDA's ventilator Emergency Use Authorization.

However, since managing ventilators requires a high level of expertise, it is usually performed by respiratory therapists, while at this hard time, unfortunately, there's a lack of medical personnel as well: A respiratory therapist often needs to take care of lots of patients at the same time. What's more, the risk of infection is increased by frequent bedside visits to check on ventilators. In order to address both issues, Singapore-based medical device company ABM Respiratory Care came up with the idea of iot-enabled ventilators. Internet of Things (IoT) technology allows healthcare professionals to securely monitor and adjust ventilator settings remotely in real time. Moreover, the tele-ventilation solution will augment access to a trained healthcare professional and increase their reach to save lives not only within the hospital network but even in most remote parts of the globe. Perhaps some day in the future, it is possible that patients treated at home due to lack of hospital beds can also receive proper healthcare by IOT technology.