A quarantine system for transfer of Covid patients

The Covid-19 crisis required emergency services to transfer certain patients via helicopter. While quarantine solutions do exist for helicopters, the emergency services needed a solution that was easier to implement and more efficiency in terms of protection. To solve this problem, they called upon the expertise of laboratories in Grenoble.

A working group was created thanks to volunteers, researchers, professors and doctoral students from UGA, the S.mart Grenoble Alpes center, and the G-SCOP, TIMC*** and HP2**** laboratories. The team solved this challenge by creating the ORL quarantine bubble specifically designed for the situation. “After having visited the helicopter with the smallest patient transport space, we designed a PVC bubble and combined it with a ventilation system. We had to test several designs in order to find the right compromise between ventilation power and bubble airtightness to ensure all outgoing air was pumped and filtered,” explains Nicolas Béraud.

The group finally agreed upon a definitive bubble design which was published as open source. They also chose the right size ventilation system and batteries to ensure autonomy throughout the patient transfer. Several prototypes were produced for future clinical studies and various French and foreign hospitals have expressed interest in the design.
 
*CNRS, Grenoble INP, UGA
** Génie Mécanique et Productique
***CHU Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, UGA, VetAgro Sup
****Laboratoire Hypoxie et Physiopathologies