Anyone using your OR anesthesia machines for ventilating intubated COVID patients in lieu of in an ICU (if ICUs are full or no more ventilators)? If so, are you using any circuit modifications or changing filters/circuits every day?
New training materials to manage COVID-19 patients in the ICU. COVID Activated Emergency Scaling of Anesthesia Responsibilities (CAESAR) educational resources, developed in collaboration with ASA, APSF, SCCM, and SOCCA.
www.asahq.org
The very first resource link is a document that will guide you through considerations for this. Super helpful.
I am not so sure we are saving lives with an 80% death rate once we place them on ventilators- in fact the ventilators may make them worse, but it is a decision between leaving them hypoxic with a non pressurized airway, CPAP/BiPAP and spray the room and staff with aerosol, or placing them on a ventilator that may improve the SpO2 and oxygenation for a period of time only to cause barotrauma or other oxygen related pulmonary damage as they deteriorate. At Mt Sinai in NYC, apparently they have moved a large number of anesthesia ventilators to the ICUs.