CAE announced on June 17 that its CAE Air1™ ventilator has been certified by Health Canada.
This made-in-Canada ventilator is destined for hospitals across the country where it will be used in the fight against COVID-19. Certification comes two months after CAE signed a contract with the Government of Canada to manufacture and supply 10,000 ventilators.
The Canadian Emergency Ventilators project involves updating 30-year-old Winnipeg Ventilator IP and design by Dr. Magdy Younes for Canada’s industrial base.
Using an agile design strategy, the Winnipeg Ventilator IP is being adapted for Canadian manufacturing supply chains that are not normally affiliated with ventilator production.
Initial project funding is provided by NGen as part of the COVID-19 initiative. Led by StarFish Medical, the effort includes Dr. Magdy Younes and Cerebra Health along with NGen’s manufacturing partners for components within Canada’s industrial base. Solutions are based upon available component design that will not impair supply to existing ventilator manufacturers.
PRESCIENTX, a medical device company based in Cambridge, Ontario, has begun taking orders for a newly developed device that uses ultraviolet light to rapidly disinfect masks.
The device, dubbed the Terminator CoV, is adjustable to fit masks of various sizes, and can process up to 500 masks per hour. Operators can adjust the speed of the conveyor belt that loads masks into the Terminator CoV.
Precision Biomonitoring, an industry leader in point-of-need molecular detection tools, has announced that it has received approval and funding from Next Generation Manufacturing Canada (NGen) to support manufacturing needs for the production of its TripleLockTM SARS-CoV-2 Go-Strips.
The funding will enable Precision Biomonitoring to work directly with Canadian manufacturers to rapidly increase production of its SARS-CoV-2 Go-Strips, which will not only support Precision Biomonitoring, but also other Canadian biotech companies working to support the accessibility of molecular testing amidst COVID-19 and into the future.
A small machine manufactured in Laval and developed in Quebec by OxyNov could lighten the work of caregivers by automatically adjusting the oxygen level of patients. The Free02 device will be tested during the pandemic in six hospitals in Quebec.
Canadian-based Medicom, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of surgical and respiratory masks, announced a long-term agreement with the Canadian Government to produce 20 million N95 respirator masks and 24 million surgical masks per year for the next 10 years, starting this summer.
Medicom has confirmed that their first Canadian mask manufacturing facility will open near their Montreal head office by July 2020 and will create at least 33 permanent jobs.
InputHealth, a Canadian healthcare software company known for their Collaborative Health Record (CHR) platform, has signed a contract to supply the Ontario Health West region with a newly devised solution for rapidly screening, triaging and treating patients according to the urgency of their care.
At a time when a wave of COVID-19 cases threatens to crash on caregivers, the new solution, called the Population Health Navigator, is designed to enable a large volume of patients to access care, and for doctors and health system managers to manage patients and deliver health services in a safe and effective way.
Medtronic continues to make progress in increasing ventilator production worldwide. The company has more than tripled its capacity to manufacture and supply ventilators in response to the urgent needs of patients and healthcare systems across the globe confronting COVID-19. Medtronic also shared one of its ventilation design specifications to help accelerate efforts to increase global ventilator production.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, GE Healthcare built and deployed a new Hospital Infectious Disease decision-support application for Humber River Hospital’s Command Centre in under 10 days to support the hospitals management of COVID-19 patients.
The application combines decision makers with real-time information, enabling Humber hospital to more precisely manage bed capacity and staff assignments and predict ICU admissions based on hospital defined patient early warning scores and the rate of decline during this crucial time when ICU resources are limited.
Stryker has the first system approved by Health Canada to sterilize N95 masks for reuse, allowing front line workers to use one mask up to three times. Hospitals across the country are receiving the Sterizone VP4 technology and will be able to sterilize almost 12 million masks per year, resulting in more than 36 million uses of masks.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and specifically N95 masks are essential for healthcare workers and have limited supply in Canada, making it important to find creative ways to increase supply and maximize use.
After taking the initiative to start testing their existing Sterizone VP4 sterilizer on N95 masks in March, in early April the company’s Quebec subsidiary, TS03, received approval from Health Canada for this new use in only two days after submitting.
