Title: Modular, intelligent ventilation and anaesthesia platform for safer patient care
Funder: Department of Health and Social Care

Abstract: Currently, a trauma patient (e.g. a road accident) arriving to hospital will be connected to three different types of ventilator during their journey from the Emergency Department to Theatre for surgery and to Intensive Care (ICU) for monitoring, a portable ventilator, a theatre anaesthetic machine and an ICU ventilator. Four machine swaps are required to return to theatre from ICU. In the UK, a major surgical case will be transferred between two anaesthetic machines, bag ventilation during transfer (with no respiratory monitoring) to an ICU ventilator. At each changeover, the patient is disconnected and reconnected, the alarms are switched off and must restart on the new machine, the doctor transfers settings between devices. This is a major source of human error. Anaesthesia or even the ventilator may not be re-started (and new machine alarms won t detect this), breathing tubes may become blocked or connected incorrectly. Healthy patients die or suffer irreparable harm because of unintended human errors. In addition, every time the machine is changed, data is erased from the previous device rather than transferred. PenMed has designed and prototyped a single device for all ventilation needs on the ward, theatre and ICU. This modular device provides high-flow oxygen, non-invasive (facemask) and invasive (breathing tube) ventilation and, by docking to an anaesthesia module, surgical anaesthesia. The patient is connected to the same ventilator module throughout their time in hospital, reducing preventable harm and the number of different devices in the hospital, lowering costs to healthcare. Also, the device is familiar to staff in both ICU and theatre so theatre ventilators can be used in ICU when required (e.g. COVID19), tripling ICU capacity within the hospital immediately. PenMed has designed our device to operate a powerful machine learning platform which it uses to optimise ventilation but we also aim to detect deterioration. All the devices are able to communicate with each other. We aim to detect a patient s condition changing on the ward, Emergency Department or theatre recovery and send a message and information about that patient to another machine (e.g. in ICU or theatre) so that the patient can be reviewed and treated. We call the failure to detect and act appropriately &ldquo;Failure-to-Rescue&rdquo; and it is the main reason between good and bad hospitals post-surgical mortality. Protecting patients and staff from the consequences of normal human error is our aim. PenMed was a finalist in the UK ventilator challenge. Agreements ensure we will offer a discount to the NHS and allow the design to be used by the government for a pandemic. We were awarded 5/5 for our proof-of-concept work supported by Innovate UK. We work with hospitals in the UK to develop and build the device in the UK.

Lay abstract: Currently, a trauma patient (e.g. a road accident) arriving to hospital will be connected to three different types of ventilator during their journey from the Emergency Department to Theatre for surgery and to Intensive Care (ICU) for monitoring, a portable ventilator, a theatre anaesthetic machine and an ICU ventilator. Four machine swaps are required to return to theatre from ICU. In the UK, a major surgical case will be transferred between two anaesthetic machines, bag ventilation during transfer (with no respiratory monitoring) to an ICU ventilator. At each changeover, the patient is disconnected and reconnected, the alarms are switched off and must restart on the new machine, the doctor transfers settings between devices. This is a major source of human error. Anaesthesia or even the ventilator may not be re-started (and new machine alarms won t detect this), breathing tubes may become blocked or connected incorrectly. Healthy patients die or suffer irreparable harm because of unintended human errors. In addition, every time the machine is changed, data is erased from the previous device rather than transferred. PenMed has designed and prototyped a single device for all ventilation needs on the ward, theatre and ICU. This modular device provides high-flow oxygen, non-invasive (facemask) and invasive (breathing tube) ventilation and, by docking to an anaesthesia module, surgical anaesthesia. The patient is connected to the same ventilator module throughout their time in hospital, reducing preventable harm and the number of different devices in the hospital, lowering costs to healthcare. Also, the device is familiar to staff in both ICU and theatre so theatre ventilators can be used in ICU when required (e.g. COVID19), tripling ICU capacity within the hospital immediately. PenMed has designed our device to operate a powerful machine learning platform which it uses to optimise ventilation but we also aim to detect deterioration. All the devices are able to communicate with each other. We aim to detect a patient s condition changing on the ward, Emergency Department or theatre recovery and send a message and information about that patient to another machine (e.g. in ICU or theatre) so that the patient can be reviewed and treated. We call the failure to detect and act appropriately &ldquo;Failure-to-Rescue&rdquo; and it is the main reason between good and bad hospitals post-surgical mortality. Protecting patients and staff from the consequences of normal human error is our aim. PenMed was a finalist in the UK ventilator challenge. Agreements ensure we will offer a discount to the NHS and allow the design to be used by the government for a pandemic. We were awarded 5/5 for our proof-of-concept work supported by Innovate UK. We work with hospitals in the UK to develop and build the device in the UK.

Research activity codes: 7.3 MANAGEMENT AND DECISION MAKING;5.3 MEDICAL DEVICES
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE