Irish engineering firm Combilift has leveraged the innovation skills that make it a world leader in forklift trucks, to solve a global shortage of the ventilators required to fight Covid-19.

The company, which was founded in 1998, revolutionised the way in which companies handle and store materials, specialising in solutions for challenging situations such as long or awkward loads, or where space is limited.

Within five weeks Combilift’s team had developed the Combi-Ventilate, a splitter device that turns one ventilator into multiple ventilator stations.

The device supports a much higher level of care for patients than previous attempts to split ventilators, and much greater levels of assurance for clinicians.

It moved into laboratory testing under Professor Gerard Curley, Professor of Anaesthesia and Critical Care at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and Consultant in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care at Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital.

It was developed in collaboration with the HSE, led by Dr Michael Power, National Clinical Lead of the HSE’s Critical Care Programme.

• The Combi-Ventilate will be of incalculable value in health systems which are ‘out of resource’.  
• The Combi-Ventilate system uses standard pipes and fittings for easy assembly. Its individual patient filters prevent cross contamination. Other features include non-return valves, HEPA filters, flow sensors and an automatic flow control valve.
• The Combi-Ventilate also has automatically adjustable flow control valves which allow the health service professional to control the tidal volume to each patient electronically, without having to make manual adjustments.
• The Combi-Ventilate system is being developed on a not for profit basis and will be of particular benefit to healthcare systems in the developing world.

The life saving device is only the latest in a series of virus-related innovations to have emerged from Ireland in recent weeks, according to Julie Sinnamon, CEO of Enterprise Ireland, the country’s trade and innovation agency.

“Irish companies are innovating in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and it is exciting to see Combilift, who have always been at the forefront of innovation in the forklift and handling sector, use its manufacturing expertise to develop the Combi-Ventilate, which will help address the urgent global demand for ventilators,” she says.

For the complete text, please visit the official website of Enterprise Ireland.

Information and image source: Enterprise Ireland