18/04/2021
Why use SPIRO speaking valves for COVID-19 procedures?
Over the course of the Coronavirus pandemic, clinicians in UK centres such as Papworth and Addenbrookes Hospitals have been increasingly deciding to perform tracheostomy instead of placing patients with severe COVID-19 virus symptoms in ITU and on to a ventilator.
According to consultants, this tracheostomy route using the highly versatile SPIRO speaking valve has many advantages:
- easy, ready-to-use speaking valve kits available (https://amzn.to/2MNUhzk)
- provides patient with a vastly increased supply of air and oxygen
- allows fully conscious patient to be placed on a ward, if required
- gives patient the ability to speak and communicate via the fenestrated tube placed in the trachea
- allows patient to retain some level of mobility, thus reducing muscle wastage during hospitalization.
- keeps bodily functions in use throughout the whole period of SPIRO
- permits swifter patient discharge once recovered adequately to have the tracheostomy removed and reversed
- reduces hospitalization time of COVID-19 patients to a minimum
- frees up ventilator units for use with most severe cases or patients with other severe respiratory support needs
- supports significant cost-savings, both through the economical SPIRO units themselves which have exchangeable filters and the call on care levels / support facilities / period of hospitalization required
Cost-effective SPIRO Speaking Valve Starter Packs (Model 760) provide consultants with ready-to-go solutions and are sold individually. Each set includes the SPIRO day-time use speaking valve and SPIRO HME (heat and moisture exchange valve / HME Valve / humidifier), plus a heat-shield ‘nose’, plastic tweezers for removing/replacing the changeable filter and an adapter for connection to a silver cannula. More changeable filters can be purchased easily for future use (https://amzn.to/3nAfIAH).