Something getting kicked around on another board is the idea of putting multiple patients on one ventilator in dire circumstances (someone heard from "a friend in the medical field" that this was on the table for COVID patients). I was curious and did a quick bit of Googling to see what was written about this.
Reminder: what follows is just what I found in two minutes, not an exhaustive search.
Splitting ventilators to provide titrated support to a large group of patients (PulmCrit blog, 3/15/2020.
Link to blogger's credentials and caveats regarding content.)
The blog is dense -- I haven't read through it thoroughly and don't know all the terminology. The author presents many caveats and does not sell it as a cakewalk or something without significant risk. However, he does attempt a way to "map out" balanced use of five ventilators to treat 20 patients (scroll down about halfway down page to the sections titled "
Bigger picture: Five ventilators to provide personalized settings to 20 patients" and "
Evidence?")
One of the commenters to that blog posted
an account of the immediate intake of the mass casualties of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting (Emergency Physicians Monthly, 11/3/2017). An excerpt ...