Gaming PC and Workstation Manufacturer Maingear Is Developing Affordable Ventilators to Help with COVID-19
Maingear is a manufacturer of custom gaming computers and workstations. They recently announced that their manufacturing facilities will begin manufacturing the Maingear LIV Ventilator to help with COVID-19. These LIV Ventilators are designed to be high-quality and affordable with the ability to be produced for ¼ of the cost of normal ventilators. This initiative has come about in an effort to help overcome the current shortage of ventilators.
The MAINGEAR LIV combines redundant power circuits, multiple safety features, and a unique coupling device that contains and drains exhaled aerosolized virus from the patient while allowing routine maintenance under severe conditions. Each unit has preset standard values for use by untrained personnel, as well as dedicated software which is controlled via touch screen interface, giving access to fine adjustments in addition to the manual regulation controls on the device. Working with its board of advisors, MAINGEAR looks to garner support for fast FDA approval under these extreme circumstances.
The American Hospital Association is currently estimating a need for up to 960,000 ventilators in the United States. This could definitely be a big help. CEO and Founder of Maingear, Wallace Santos, released the following statement:
It was clear once this situation began to escalate that something had to be done. Within days of assembling our team, we had our first prototype ventilator ready to go. Besides the lack of medical supplies and equipment, we think there will be a shortage of medical professionals who can operate these devices especially in field hospitals, so we also made it incredibly simple to use. Now we need help getting the word out to the appropriate people.
Nahush Mokadam, Director of Cardiac Surgery at Ohio State University and a member of the Medical Advisory Board of Maingear, added:
We are experiencing the first wave of the pandemic. The lack of critical equipment such as ventilators is a key limitation in our response. This ventilator has the advantage of being portable, rugged, and easily operated by frontline personnel.