In April, several of the world's ventilator manufacturers announced a newly formed Ventilator Training Alliance (VTA) to support frontline medical providers to access a centralized repository of ventilator training. Those manufacturers include Getinge, a Hacienda tenant that is a leading global provider of products and systems that contribute to quality enhancement and cost efficiency within healthcare and life sciences.

"Supporting our customers and facilitating ventilator training continues to be key to all stakeholders in this project", according to Charles Merchant, Senior Director Global Therapy Development Acute Care Therapies at Getinge. "Drager, GE Healthcare, Hamilton Medical, Medtronic, Philips, Vyaire Medical, and Nihon Kohden, together with Getinge, have joined this humanitarian training coalition."

The VTA app, powered by learning and readiness platform provider Allego, connects respiratory therapists, nurses, and other medical professionals with ventilator training resources from alliance member companies, including instructional how-to videos, manuals, troubleshooting guides, and other ventilator-operation expertise critical to treating patients suffering from COVID-19-related respiratory distress. Ventilators play a critical role in the management of patients who require assistance because they cannot breathe effectively due to severe respiratory illness, such as COVID-19. Speed and ease of access to ventilator training has a direct impact on patients' health during the COVID-19 crisis.

Content on the VTA app can be accessed on iOS and Android devices, even in environments with little to no Wi-Fi access, or from a web browser. The app provides healthcare professionals' multi-language closed captioning and mobile background audio when multitasking. The app is provided at no cost to medical professionals. To download the Ventilator Training Alliance knowledge hub application, interested users can visit the Apple App Store or Google Play store.

The Ventilator Training Alliance provides a library of training and product materials for medical professionals. Created through a partnership between ventilator manufacturers, including Drager, GE Healthcare, Getinge, Hamilton Medical, Medtronic, Philips, Vyaire Medical, and Nihon Kohden, and powered by Allego, the central knowledge hub provides free mobile access to video overviews, instruction manuals, and other training materials for equipment that is critical to treating patients suffering from COVID-19-related respiratory distress. Ventilator manufacturers wanting to join the alliance can send participation requests to VTA-Join@allego.com.

Getinge's family of healthcare and life science brands- which include Maquet, Lancer, Atrium, Pulsion, Datascope, Steritec, Stericool, Trans, and others-are unifying under the Getinge name. Getinge employs more than 10,000 people and has operations in more than 30 countries. Getinge is a leader in its chosen business segments, which focus on Surgical Workflows, Acute Care Therapies, and Patient and Post Acute Care. In 2016, the three separate business areas merged into one single company as a step towards delivering more customer value.

For more information about Getinge, please visit www.getinge.com/int.