Patients with severe respiratory complications – such as COVID-19 – often require prolonged mechanical ventilation. Existing ventilator devices can weigh up to 30 kgs, making them difficult to haul around within the hospital to cater to the needs of different patients. Ranging between INR 4 to15 lakhs, their high-cost makes them out of reach for smaller hospitals. Patients on such ventilators require an in-person examination by a doctor every 30 minutes, which increases the risk of infection for the medical staff. Moreover, the equipment itself needs constant monitoring by staff who need to be extensively trained before they can operate it.

Jeevan Lite

Jeevan Lite is a low cost, portable and smart ventilator developed by Aerobiosys Innovations – a start-up incubated at IIT Hyderabad’s Centre for Healthcare Entrepreneurship. Priced at just over INR 1 lakh per unit, Jeevan Lite can be remotely controlled via a mobile app. It also has an IoT-enabled monitoring feature to remotely control the ventilator’s functions thereby reducing the number of physical check-ins by doctors and diminishing their risk of contracting infections. The remote monitoring feature enables centralised management in pandemic-like situations, where hundreds of patients have to wait for ventilators. The deployment of this device can reduce the number of fatalities due to the current scarcity of ventilators.

The design and features of Jeevan Lite comply with the requirements of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, , Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).