Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
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Disasters have the potential to cause critical shortages of life-saving equipment. It has been postulated that during patient surge, multiple individuals could be maintained on a single ventilator. This was supported by a previous trial that showed one ventilator could support four sheep. The goal of our study is to investigate if cross contamination of pathological agents occurs between individuals on a shared ventilator with strategically placed antimicrobial filters. ⋯ Based on this circuit configuration, it is plausible to maintain four individuals on a single ventilator for 24 hours without fear of cross contamination.