title: Portable volume ventilators.
abstract: We evaluated 5 portable volume ventilators from 4 manufacturers. Ventilation requirements in general patient care areas in the hospital differ from those for home care; therefore, we considered use of the units for these applications separately. None of the units are ideal for either application because of the limitations and risks of each ventilator. All units are rated Conditionally Acceptable, but are ranked for hospital use only. The primary conditions for acceptable hospital use are that exhaled-volume monitoring be performed for all patients and that O2 monitoring be performed both when setting FIO2 and continuously when FIO2 levels are critical. For home care, users should carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each unit and base their choice of a unit primarily on individual patient needs, ease of use, and safety factors.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D003663:Decision Trees; D004389:Durable Medical Equipment / Q000592:standards*; D004734:Energy Metabolism; D004867:Equipment Design; D004868:Equipment Failure; D004869:Equipment Safety; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006801:Humans; D007385:Intermittent Positive-Pressure Ventilation / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000592:standards; D008283:Maintenance; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000295:instrumentation; D012119:Respiration; D013673:Technology Assessment, Biomedical; D012122:Ventilators, Mechanical / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data