How We Breathe: how technology is changing approaches to ventilation

Between 2020 and 2022, I spent a lot of time reading about ventilators. So did a lot of the country. News coverage of the pandemic talked about everything from the serious shortage in ventilators around the country to new technologies available that might help save lives by helping victims of the virus breathe. From the pandemic that started in March of 2020, to the wildfires in California in August of that same year that made it difficult to take the outside air, I have spent a lot of time over the last few years thinking about breathing, that simple and essential activity that we’ll do, mostly unconsciously, throughout our lives. And how that activity of breathing is, at this moment in history, connected to technology. That’s why I wanted to talk to Aurika Savickaite, an- Acute Care Nurse Practitioner and medical professional at the University of Chicago who has spent her entire career providing top-quality patient care and advocating for the use of helmet-based ventilation to improve healthcare outcomes.