Open-source ventilator

An open source ventilator is a disaster-situation ventilator made using a freely licensed (open-source) design, and ideally, freely available components and parts (open source hardware). Designs, components, and parts may be anywhere from completely reverse-engineered or completely new creations, components may be adaptations of various inexpensive existing products, and special hard-to-find and/or expensive parts may be 3D-printed instead of purchased. As of early 2020, the levels of documentation and testing of open source ventilators was well below scientific and medical-grade standards.

One small, early prototype effort was the Pandemic Ventilator created in 2008 during the resurgence of H5N1 avian influenza that began in 2003, so named "because it is meant to be used as a ventilator of last resort during a possible avian (bird) flu pandemic."

Quality assessment

The policy of using both free and open source software (FOSS) and open source hardware theoretically allows community-wide peer-review and correction of bugs and faults in open source ventilators, which is not available in closed source hardware development. In early 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, a review of open source ventilators stated that "the tested and peer-reviewed systems lacked complete documentation and the open systems that were documented were either at the very early stages of design ... and were essentially only basically tested ..." The author speculated that the pandemic would motivate development that would significantly improve the open source ventilators, and that much work, policies, regulations, and funding would be needed for the open source ventilators to achieve medical-grade standards.

Design requirements

A number of features are required for an invasive mechanical ventilator to be safely used on a patient:

a way of measuring and controlling the volume pumped and the breath rate to avoid volutrauma;

monitoring for inspiratory pressure, respiratory rate (bpm), and inspiratory-to-expiratory time (I/E) ratio

for non-sedated patients, an "assist" mode that, instead of forcing air in at a fixed frequency, only increases the pressure when the patient inhales;

for ARDS, support for setting positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) to avoid alveoli collapse;

humidification to avoid drying and cooling the alveoli.

The requirements for non-invasive ventilation are less strict.

COVID-19 pandemic

On March 16, 2020, the Open Source Ventilator Ireland (OSV) group was formed initially with the goal of building a focus team in Ireland to begin development on what was termed the "Field Emergency Ventilator (FEV)". Inspired by the initial efforts of the Open Source Medical Supplies (OSCMS), which initially focused on developing open ventilators but quickly refocusing mainly on the local production of Personal Protective Experiment (PPE).