We’re pleased to share some positive news about the COVID-19 fight….
An international team of designers, engineers, medical professionals, and military experts have worked together to create CURA (Connected Units for Respiratory Ailments), a biocontainment intensive-care pod for patients with respiratory infections.
CURA aims to convert shipping containers into plug-in Intensive-Care Pods for the COVID-19 pandemic. The units could be as fast to mount as a hospital tent, but as safe as an isolation ward, thanks to biocontainment with negative pressure. The first unit – whose open-source design has been initiated by an international task force of architects, engineers, doctors, military experts and NGOs and is open to further contributions – is currently being built in Milan, Italy, with the sponsorship of UniCredit.
CURA aims to improve the efficiency of existing solutions in the design of field hospitals, tailoring them to the current pandemic. In the last weeks, hospitals in the countries most affected by COVID-19, from China to Italy, Spain to the USA, have been struggling to increase their Intensive Care Unit (ICU) capacity to admit a growing number of patients with severe respiratory diseases, in need of ventilators. Whatever the evolution of this pandemic, it is expected that more ICUs will be needed internationally in the next few months.
Each CURA pod would contain all the medical equipment needed for two COVID-19 intensive-care patients – including ventilators and intravenous fluids stands. All units can be connected by an inflatable corridor. The first CURA pod is being built for test at a hospital in Milan, Italy.
CURA pods are being conceived as a ready-to-use solution. Shipping containers can easily be moved through different modes of transport – from ship to rail to truck – and re-used in different parts of the world, adapting to the needs and capacity of the local healthcare infrastructure.
CURA is developed in an open-source, non-for-profit framework and solicits suggestions and improvements.
Contributors to date are listed below in chronological order. More information is available on www.CURApods.org
CREDITS
CURA-Connected Units for Respiratory Ailments
www.CURApods.org
The first prototype of CURA, to be developed in Milan, Italy, is sponsored by UniCredit
List of people and organizations who have contributed thus far to CURA (in chronological order):
CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati with Italo Rota (Design and Innovation), Humanitas Research Hospital (Medical Engineering), Policlinico di Milano (Medical Consultancy), Jacobs (Alberto Riva – Master Planning, design, construction and logistics support services), studio FM milano (Visual identity & graphic design), Squint/opera (Digital media), Alex Neame of Team Rubicon UK (Logistics), Ivan Pavanello of Projema (MEP Engineering), Dr. Maurizio Lanfranco of Ospedale Cottolengo (Medical Consultancy).
With the support of the World Economic Forum: COVID-19 Action Platform, and Cities, Infrastructure and Urban Services Platform
CURA is an open-source project.
To share ideas or suggestions, visit the website www.CURApods.org.