LIVONIA, Mich. – Hospitals are looking for ways to get the most out of the ventilators they do have on hand.
NovaStar Solutions, located on Plymouth Road in Livonia, sells 3D printers and converted its demonstration lab into a place to make ventilator parts.
The machines are making ventilator hose splitters that allow more than one patient to use one ventilator and a T shaped part for sleep apnea air pumps.
NovaStar CEO Dave Baumgarten said the company has sent 100 samples to Henry Ford Health Systems and Beaumont Hospitals.
The company received emergency FDA permission to help out and is using its fleet of industrial-grade HP Jet Fusion 3D printers for this effort.
“This is the first 3D print technology in the world that can print a lot of parts overnight," Baumgarten said. "There are a lot of 3D printing solutions around but it would take a long time to print 200 parts like we did overnight.”
It’s all experimental. Doctors aren’t certain putting more than one person on a ventilator is a good idea but NovaStar’s crew is getting more request to build more prototype ventilator parts.
“I can’t hold my guys back at our 3D printing center," Baumgarten "They get any requests for anything like this, they’re printing. We’re all excited to help and maybe save a few lives.”
NovaStar Solutions is working with at least four different hospitals to get their parts out. The hospitals will be doing the research to see if they work. If they don’t function as planned, the good news is they can redesign and build more parts overnight.