Background and Identification
Founded in 1847, Siemens AG is a German multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Munich and is the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe with branch offices abroad. Its principal divisions are Industry, Energy, Healthcare, and Infrastructure & Cities. Accordingly, Siemens is a prominent manufacturer of medical diagnostics equipment, including ventilators.
Ventilators are used to aid patients who are unable to breathe by providing mechanical ventilation by moving breathable air into and out of the lungs. Modern ventilators are controlled by computerized microprocessors and are mainly used in intensive-care medicine, home care, emergency medicine, and in anesthesiology. Another name for ventilators is “respirators”, a term commonly used in the 1950s, Now, the term respirator is mostly used to refer to a protective face mask.
A popular Siemens ventilator is the 300A Servo, which is a lung ventilator intended for use with adult, pediatric, and neonatal patients. Compared to the 300 Servo, the 300A offers an Auto Mode Feature that when triggered, shifts from controlled to supported ventilation and remains in the support mode as long as the patient keeps triggering. Then, if the patient stops breathing, the ventilator shifts back to the control mode. The 300A consists of two main components: the control unit and the patient unit. The control unit contains the electronic circuits necessary for control and ventilation (panel and knobs) and the patient unit continually measures flow and pressure with transducers.