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Senior Helps Protect Healthcare Heroes Through Research Project

Mineola High School senior Keira Talty is working to protect healthcare workers with her science research project. Throughout the pandemic, many patients were in the hospital because they were experiencing respiratory distress and therefore were put on non-invasive ventilators. The problem was that healthcare workers had to physically go into the patients’ rooms to control the ventilators, risking contracting the virus themselves and having to change their personal protective equipment each time.

Talty developed a non-invasive ventilator that can be monitored and controlled from a remote location, such as a mobile device or computer—reducing the number of times practitioners and healthcare workers must visit a patient’s room and face the risk of contracting COVID-19. Talty’s fully operational non-invasive ventilator also integrates a pulse oximeter to measure a person’s oxygen saturation.

Talty began her project by researching non-invasive ventilators and followed up by reading studies from other universities who produced their own ventilators at a low cost.

Recently, proof of concept was established at NYU Langone. Biomedical engineers determined that Talty’s non-invasive ventilator was safe, effective and that all important parameters were within range of acceptable limits.

Currently, there is no one controlling BiPap or CPAP machines remotely. Talty is in the process of getting her non-invasive ventilator patented.

—Submitted by Mineola Union Free School District