Early in my career as a young engineer, I was part of an ICU ventilator team conducting a usage study. In my time in the ICU, I saw firsthand how the right technology can enable a better life—literally empower breath. Today, when I welcome new employees, I remind them that you can go without food for three weeks and without water for three days. But air? That’s just three minutes. I tell them that they are now part of a team of innovators breathing new life into traditional therapies.
COVID-19 has illuminated how fragile life is … how quickly you can go from healthy to struggling for your next breath. A key learning from the pandemic is that scaling up is more than having enough ventilators available. You also need to have the people with the skills to operate them—in and out of the ICU.
The challenge is how to make complex lung health technology accessible and scalable outside the hospital. Post-COVID care will require managing complete lung health, from ventilation to airway clearance. That’s why at we create intelligent, integrated care solutions that help people breathe better inside and outside the hospital. That means integrated airway clearance designed for at-home use. It means tele-ventilation to ensure scalability. And it means platform-based remote monitoring to keep patients connected and potentially reduce readmissions.
The lung health landscape has changed a lot since my days in the ICU. New challenges demand novel approaches to advance the standard of care in treating chronic and acute respiratory diseases and conditions—wherever and whenever needed. That’s what the future holds for lung health because that’s what my team is focused on delivering today.
Vinay was also interviewed on the Inspiration for Lung Health podcast.