What is ventilator testing?

Ventilators apply volume and pressure to a patient's lung, to deliver assisted breathing. They are a vital part of critical care, which means the accuracy of ventilation variables is fundamental to patient safety. It is important that set values and actual values are equal. Ensuring ventilator accuracies is part of preventative maintenance procedures and is regulated across the world.

A typical set up for ventilation testing involves a flow analyzer and a test lung. Gas flow analyzers are typically capable of measuring flow, pressure and gas concentration, so both ventilators and anaesthesia machines can be tested. Despite these being the primary applications it's also possible to test other medical devices due to the multi-parameter, high accuracy measurements e.g., oxygen concentrators, blood pressure analyzers, vacuum pumps, spirometers and pipe gases.