Vents

Hamilton T1 or Zoll Zvent.

Real life pros and cons. We are getting demos of both.

I don’t have any experience with the Zoll ventilator. I have used the LTV, Revel, and Hamilton. To date the Hamilton T1 has been the best ventilator that I have used. One of our competitors went from the LTV to the Zoll for about 2 years and they are now switching to the Hamilton.

Pros:
Information is clearly displayed and easy to read.
Touch screen is accurate and responsive. Plus you have a scroll wheel and some soft buttons.
The parameters and loops that are displayed are great.
On the Home Screen you have agency customizable "MMP" Main Monitoring Parameters so a quick glance at the vent is often the only thing you need to do.
Has ideal Body Weights built in so all you need to do is put in the patient's sex and height and it spits out the IBW.
Its fantastic at CPAP/BiPAP.
If you pair it up with the Hamilton H900 you can do heated and humidified oxygen up to 60Lpm 100%FiO2.
A very similar form factor to the Zoll X-series monitor.
Hamilton has their own online education about the ventilator.
Hamilton has free online ventilator training software.
A lot of our hospitals are also using the Hamilton ventilator (C-1 and not the T-1 but they are pretty much identical).
There are plenty of ventilation modes that can be set up depending on what you want. We just started using the CPR mode they have and add that in with the AutoPulse NXT we just started carrying and we can run a code hands free.

Cons:
The ventilator itself is pricey and the ventilator tubing is also on the expensive side.
Hamilton uses some weird terminology that is specific for only them. So it can take a while to adjust.
The ventilator does not have a true exhalation valve so you can't get a normal pPlat, they have a work around to get the value.
The ventilator can give you too much information and if you start trying to go too in depth then things can get even more complicated.
If you drop them they do break. Also consider getting a screen protector for them (the cheap ones on Amazon for Ram trucks with the 8.4 screen fit perfectly)

Great info. Thanks.

For what it’s worth, we buy the ventilator tubing for ~$47 per circuit.

I use the Zoll Ventilator. It's not bad. Not great either but it does get the job done. It'll do the "usual" modes and appears to be reasonably well tolerated by patients. It's definitely way better than a PLV-102...

I've used both, technically I currently use both. The Zoll Z vent is a good vent. It does everything I need it to do. CPAP, bipap, SIMV, AC. Can do both pressure and volume. It's hard to break though I haven't tried.

The T1 does all that and more. As Desert said it does ventilation funny but it does it well. I really can't add anything to what Desert said and honestly he's probably better qualified at talking about them as I only use it PRN.

I'd you are regularly using vents and for long transports I'd say the T1. If you are using them occasionally the Z vent.

Just my two thoughts that aren't worth much.

We would use them primarily for shorter transports, patients primarily on BiPAP. It’s not often that we intubate and ventilate patients in the field, we’re just not that service. But, we would certainly use the vent in that case, as opposed to just bagging a patient to the hospital.

We don’t do much in the way of “critical care” so it would be a standard EMS style ventilator. I really like the Hamilton, but I think the Z vent is probably more cost-effective for our occasional use.

PotatoMedic said:

I'd you are regularly using vents and for long transports I'd say the T1. If you are using them occasionally the Z vent.

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That's about how I would assess them. The Z Vent won't do some modes that are used in the ICU but it will get the job done and can do long distance transports and for EMS use, you're not going to use those ICU modes anyway. In my ED and hospital, we do use Hamilton vents but we just start our patients on AC (P) on all of our vents when we emergently intubate. The RT can adjust settings from there as needed.

Not sure if you know this already, but Hamilton has a ventilator simulator app. It is called VenTrainer. I think it is a great way to train on the Hamilton ventilators and get familiar with the Hamilton T1 layout and terminology.

I did, but thanks for sharing. It’s a great tool.

Aprz said:

Not sure if you know this already, but Hamilton has a ventilator simulator app. It is called VenTrainer. I think it is a great way to train on the Hamilton ventilators and get familiar with the Hamilton T1 layout and terminology.

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IIRC I don't believe Zoll has a similar app. That's one of the things I do not like about the Zoll Vent. While it's not difficult to operate, if I only use the darned thing only every great once in a while, it's not easy to be come truly proficient with it. A reasonable simulator/emulator would be a good way to keep the infrequent users familiar with the Z Vent on their own time, without breaking out the actual item.

Akulahawk said:

IIRC I don't believe Zoll has a similar app. That's one of the things I do not like about the Zoll Vent. While it's not difficult to operate, if I only use the darned thing only every great once in a while, it's not easy to be come truly proficient with it. A reasonable simulator/emulator would be a good way to keep the infrequent users familiar with the Z Vent on their own time, without breaking out the actual item.

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I will say finding some of the sub settings like "I time" and trigger can be tricky when you don't remember which button they are under.

Push the A Zed-5 button.