AWARD YEAR
2019
CATEGORY
Body
GOALS
Good Health & Well-being
KEYWORDS
Infant mortality, Life saving, Ventilation
COUNTRY
United States of America
DESIGNED BY
Based on their experience living and working in resource-limited settings, the NeoVent team saw the problem of infant respiratory distress firsthand. This inspired them to apply their engineering and medical backgrounds to design, build and test a solution. They are excited to scale NeoVent across resource limited settings to save infant lives.
Stephen, the team lead, is a mechanical engineer and 4th year medical student at the University of Michigan.
WEBSITE
http://www.aimtechhealth.com
NeoVent
NeoVent, is an award-winning low cost, low-tech, non-electric infant ventilator
Over 1 million infants die each year due to severe respiratory distress, making this a leading cause of pediatric death worldwide. 99% of these deaths occur in low- to middle-income countries (WHO). Part of the problem is that current ventilators are too expensive, require skilled operators, and require continuous electricity.
Based on our 10+ years in Nepal, we designed NeoVent. The float collects bubbles, rises, vents and sinks… in the process cycling pressure to ventilate an infant. The non-electric design can be manufactured at scale for less than 1/100th the cost of conventional ventilators. Device function can be intuitively verified visually by device position rather than complex pressure graphs. The design has won national competitions (Collegiate Inventors, James Dyson, BME Start, ASME I-show, Lemelson-MIT).
Having validated NeoVent in manikins, lung simulators and sedated rabbits, we are now collaborating with leading hospitals in SE Africa and Asia to launch NeoVent.