April 9, 2020 - The Center for Medical Interoperability ("C4MI") today announced the availability of a specification and remote testing service that will help improve semantic interoperability for ventilators. Implementations conformant to the new specification will make it easier for providers to capture data across an organization to improve management and monitoring of COVID-19 patients and others with respiratory failure. Normalized and trusted ventilator data will also allow investigators to evaluate and share interventions across organizations.

"The COVID-19 pandemic is putting an unprecedented strain on our health systems as we face ventilator shortages," said Dr. Michael M.E. Johns, who was the Founding Chairman for C4MI and Chairman/CEO emeritus Emory Healthcare. "Furthermore, this situation has highlighted the need to share ventilator data to protect our care providers from excess exposure."

The draft ventilator specification was developed by an experienced team of internists, intensivists, pulmonary medicine and critical care practitioners, neonatologists, anesthesiologists, clinical informaticists and ventilator manufacturers. The specification focuses and clarifies existing ventilator data semantic standards and supplements existing C4MI medical device interoperability specifications.

"We see the benefit of making our ventilator data available and aligned with the industry," said Bob Hamilton, CEO Hamilton Medical.

"Now more than ever, ventilators need to enable remote monitoring," said Ed Cantwell, CEO C4MI, "and we stand ready to assist the community on a path towards ventilator connectivity and interoperability." C4MI is seeking to collaborate with a broad set of stakeholders, including manufacturers, application developers and the government to enable the nation's healthcare providers to connect their ventilators in a trusted way so that the data they generate can be effectively utilized to improve patient care and safety.

In support of the specification release, C4MI is making available a remote testing service for ventilator manufacturers that wish to demonstrate conformance to the recommended observational identifiers in this specification. Ventilator manufacturers interested in taking advantage of this testing service should send inquiries to certlab@center4mi.org. The specification can be found at: https://medicalinteroperability.org/specifications.