BROOKSVILLE, Fla — A local company is working on an invention that it hopes will put a big dent in the shortage of ventilation devices around the nation.
AtmosHome is a startup company in Brooksville that makes smart home control equipment. But right now, they’re putting those skills and materials to use in a different way that they hope could be a game-changer in the battle to treat patients with COVID-19.
CEO Mark Lyle and a colleague, both former rocket scientists who once built guidance systems for NASA, are shifting gears.
They’re re-tooling to build an automated version of what’s commonly called a bag valve mask. These breathing apparatuses are bulbous face masks that people squeeze by hand to keep patients breathing.
“You know, we pulled upon our experience,” Lyle. “And we thought - all right, we can do something like this that could truly help.”
The idea is that instead of manually squeezing a bag to push air into a person’s lungs, a machine would do it.
A key component they’re working on right now is adding a pressure sensor to deliver just the right amount of air without causing complications, like over-inflating a patient’s lungs or sending air to their stomach.
“I think we are inserting some reliability into the mix,” Lyle said. “Plus, the complexity to be able to adjust those critical factors that we mentioned earlier like breaths per minute, inhalation exhalation ratio, the pressures and so forth that some of the other projects might not be addressing.”
Lyle and his coworkers are collaborating with scientists at Rice University and MIT, which has already received FDA approval for a similar prototype.
Their ideas are being open-sourced -- freely sharing the information and software.
The idea here, they say, is that an early stage patient currently tying up a ventilator who just needs a minimal amount of help breathing could use one of these machines instead.
“Now, you have freed up a nurse or an EMT. And potentially freed up a ventilation machine, so absolutely the goal is to avoid the situation that we’re in today,” Lyle said.
The company, he says, should have a working prototype ready to go this week that would cost around $1,000. That’s less than a tenth of what a full-blown ventilator would cost. And, it could be made from readily available parts. Their plan is to get it in front of the FDA shortly after that.
Lyle says he’s hopeful and excited by the prospect that their ingenuity and ability to quickly produce the devices right here in Tampa Bay, could save lives around the world.
“If us and others working on this project can save some lives in the process,” he said. “That’s the ultimate goal.”
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