COVID-19 Patients Being Triaged, Assessed Using Two-Minute Breath-Based Gas Test

Hospitals across North America are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and the upsurge of patients with a revolutionary breath-based gas test to support faster patient assessment, triage, and treatment decisions. The medical device uses advanced technology and proven medical methods to measure a patient’s degree of respiratory impairment. The new U.S. Food and Drug Administration-cleared, portable gas exchange monitor, MediPines AGM100, is effectively helping frontline healthcare workers to quickly triage and make decisions on how to treat COVID-19 patients.
 
“Our doctors and nurses are counting on this quick respiratory test to help them both identify patients that need escalated care, such as who needs to be admitted, and who needs ventilator support, while they wait for COVID-19 diagnostic test results to arrive, which unfortunately are taking days to get,” stated Dr. Oswaldo Ramirez, an emergency physician at a leading northeastern hospital.   
 
The MediPines AGM100 outputs a “breathing gas-based” measurement that can provide immediate respiratory data after the patient breathes into a breathing tube for less than two minutes. Complicated or invasive or procedures are not required. The AGM100 rapidly provides measurements such as oxygen deficit that help clinicians assess the extent of a patient’s respiratory impairment. This has proven to be especially beneficial to healthcare workers trying to prioritize limited resources in the context of COVID-19, enabling high-risk patients to receive the appropriate level of care and attention.  
 
The device uses a disposable breathing circuit with a mouthpiece designed to limit pathogen exposure. These features are highly important to the safety of both patients and frontline healthcare workers in order to prevent the spread of disease. 
 
“The AGM100 is helping our medical team to better diagnose the severity of a patient’s respiratory symptoms in under a few minutes, while minimizing pathogen exposure to our valuable health care workers,” according to Dr. Ramirez.

MediPines has released guidance on the use of the MediPines AGM100 during the COVID-19 pandemic.