Nuno Coelho, alumni of the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP), school of engineering of Polytechnic of Porto, is one of the drivers of the Open Air project and the Vent2life platform that identifies and repairs unused ventilators.
Vent2life allows all interested entities, public or private, collective or individual, to identify the ventilators and equipment in their possession, unused or in need of repair, so that they can be rehabilitated. The platform was developed in about a week by 24 volunteers and a team, also a volunteer, from OutSystems, which provided the technical support and programming of the system. It is, therefore, an ecosystem that links equipment donors, specialists capable of ensuring the recovery of ventilators and beneficiary health units.
The founders of this movement estimate that it will be possible to recover 200 ventilators, currently inoperative, that are located in different parts of the country. Some of them have already been identified and are being analyzed by specialists, so that they can be used in the treatment of critically ill patients infected with Covid-19.
To register the equipment on the platform, interested parties must access the website and complete the indicated form. On the other hand, the specialists who assess the condition of the equipment have to prove their skills to the Vent2life management team.
Polytechnic of Porto, through ISEP is one of the partners in this project, which also has the support of the Portuguese Engineers Association, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universidade Nova de Lisboa or Nova Medical School. This union of efforts aims to provide health professionals with the technical means necessary to provide the best care, in the current context of the pandemic. In addition, the Vent2life team is still working so that the project can also be applied to other countries.
