The world’s most easy-to-use ventilator

The Servo-i project, to create a ventilator that simplifies transport of the patient while maintaining the quality of care, was a really challenging  commission from Siemens’ (now Maquet). Transporting a patient under ventilation often poses severe logistical problems that affect the medical care.

We started by identifying the problems with the existing product. It was too technical, difficult to clean, had an intimidating user interface, offered limited access to the patient, was difficult to place in the intensive care room, complicated to transport and looked frightening.

The final design is the result of a thorough development process. The new pillar system, the organisation of cables and components together with intuitive forms and interface make the ventilator less intimidating and easy to understand and use.

Ease of learning, ease of use, safety, efficiency and accuracy have been the guiding principles for the design of the user interface. It allows multiple ways to interact and direct access to vital settings to ensure fast, safe and intuitive handling. The system can be placed on the wall, the bed, a trolley or at a pillar arm. It is easy to clean and it takes less than 5 minutes to prepare it for a new patient, compared to 20-40 minutes for competitive products. Moving the patient takes half the time and is much safer. Being able to transport the patient with an advanced ventilator reduces the recovery time dramatically.

The new design turned round declining sales. The Servo-i quickly became the benchmark ventilator and sales volumes have increased by 100% since the launch. Today it has a global market share of 40% in premium ventilators. It was a pioneer in sustainable design, certified to SS-EN ISO 14001:1996