ICU ventilators: one specification, many hospitals, one tender

What you are actually buying

The institution buys a critical care ventilator for each ventilated bed, with humidification, circuits, a trolley and, where the site has no piped medical air, a compressor. Quotes diverge on the mode set and the proprietary names given to it, on paediatric and neonatal capability, on non-invasive ventilation with leak compensation, on high-flow oxygen, on whether the unit is turbine-driven or gas-driven, on oxygen sensing method, and on battery duration. Two errors recur. Specifying a mode list instead of the patient population actually ventilated buys capability the unit will never use, and treating humidifiers and circuits as accessories hides a running cost that continues for every day the bed is occupied.

Why icu ventilator suits collective purchasing

Ventilators aggregate well. They are bought bed by bed, so a multi-hospital requirement becomes large enough to interest manufacturers directly rather than a local distributor, and the base specification - modes, monitoring, alarms, battery - standardises even where intensivists differ on preferred make. Service weighs more heavily here than for most equipment, because a ventilator out of service takes a critical care bed out of use. Response times, spares holding and an obligation to provide a loan unit belong in the aggregated contract itself, not in a maintenance discussion held two years later when the leverage has gone.

How a pool for this runs

Also pooled under ICU, emergency & critical care