Heat Moisture Exchanger (HME) - Pediatric

Indicated for use with patients whose upper airways are being bypassed by an artificial airway. This removes the patient's natural ability to filter, warm and moisten inspired gases. Medical gases are much colder and dryer than those which people would normally breathe so the problem is exacerbated during Anesthesia and
Ventilation. HME media acts in a similar way to a person's upper airway, when they breathe out the media traps and retains moisture and warmth present in the expired breath, which otherwise would be lost. On the next breath the moisture and heat is released, having the effect of both warming and humidifying the inspiratory gas Air Safety's line HME media has been developed to maximize the surface area, which is a key feature of the efficiency of performance. The ability to retain moisture from the gas can be further maximized by binding hygroscopic salts, which have a strong attraction to water in the foam media pad. The special binding process ensures that the media does not start attracting moisture until the patient starts to breathe through the device. A range of chemical free HME media are also increasingly in use.
The American Respiratory Society has identified 30mg/L H20 as the level that these types of devices should aim to achieve.
The combination of these design features has enabled Air Safety line to achieve over 30mg/L H20 on all there devices when independently tested to ISO 9360 part 1 at MDA test centre University Hospital Wales, Cardiff, UK.