Ventilator Testing Support

Advice and support for users of Rigel’s gas flow analyzers

Get the most out of your Rigel gas flow analyzers and find the answers to your questions with our FAQs.

FAQs and Articles

Why test ventilators?

Ventilators are sophisticated medical devices essential in supplying respiratory support to critical ill patients in clinical facilities and homes. They are also regularly used during surgery whilst patients are under anaesthesia. Long term ventilation at home is progressively becoming more common, initiated by an increase in severe respiratory diseases. Despite ventilators being a necessary life-saving device, unskilled patients are often operating them. Even with appropriate training ventilators carry inherent risks.

Two particular risks that occur from ventilators are lung damage (too much pressure) and oxygen toxicity (high levels of oxygen). Gas flow analysers ensure that gas concentration, flow and pressure are all performing as they should according to the manufacturer’s performance maintenance schedule

What is ventilator testing?

Ventilators apply volume and pressure to a patient's lung, to deliver assisted breathing. They are a vital part of critical care, which means the accuracy of ventilation variables is fundamental to patient safety. It is important that set values and actual values are equal. Ensuring ventilator accuracies is part of preventative maintenance procedures and is regulated across the world.

A typical set up for ventilation testing involves a flow analyzer and a test lung. Gas flow analyzers are typically capable of measuring flow, pressure and gas concentration, so both ventilators and anaesthesia machines can be tested. Despite these being the primary applications it's also possible to test other medical devices due to the multi-parameter, high accuracy measurements e.g., oxygen concentrators, blood pressure analyzers, vacuum pumps, spirometers and pipe gases.

How to test ventilators?

Medical ventilator types differ by application with diverse ranges. For instance, an infant ventilator typically applies a volume of around 2mL with 100mbar pressure and a breath rate of 120bpm; whereas an adult ventilator typically applies 2000mL of volume with 20mbar of pressure and a breath rate of 12bpm. Therefore, a ventilator tester must be capable of measuring flow, volume, pressure and oxygen over a wide range of values.
It is important that a gas flow analyser is triggered correctly to measure the breath based parameters. Detection of inspiration duration occurs during a ventilators breath cycle. Exhalation time occurs via the test lung to the expiratory valve on a ventilator.

A ventilator tester also needs to compensate for other variables, such as temperature and humidity, as these factors have an effect on overall gas volume measurements. In a gas flow measurement channel there will be a wide range of sensors to accurately measure ventilation.

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