Royal Philips has announced the Canadian launch of the Philips Respironics V680 Ventilator for hospital respiratory care, offering both invasive and non-invasive ventilation. The Philips Respironics V680 Ventilator was recently unveiled at the Canadian Society of Respiratory Therapists' Annual Conference in Calgary, Alberta.

In consultation with clinicians, the Philips Respironics V680 Ventilator is designed for smoother transition from ventilation to natural breathing, which may help enhance patient care.

"For nearly 125 years, Philips has been committed to delivering innovations that improve people's lives. The Philips Respironics V680 Ventilator is yet another example of Philips technology that is designed with the needs of both the patient and clinician in mind," said Mr Iain Burns, president, Philips Canada. He added, "From Healthy Living, Prevention, Diagnosis, to Treatment, Recovery and Home Care, Philips creates solutions that span the health continuum, and it's how we are delivering on our vision to make the world healthier through innovation."

The Philips Respironics V680 Ventilator is the first ventilator to combine the Philips gold standard single-limb noninvasive ventilation (NIV) solution with a fully featured, dual-limb system. Designed to deliver advanced life support for critically ill patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), the Philips Respironics V680 Ventilator is also designed to make it fast and easy to switch from invasive to noninvasive ventilation to streamline transitions. Personalized to each patient, the Philips Respironics V680 Ventilator can help deliver the right therapy at the right time. It is the only ventilator to provide continuous measurements of dynamic resistance, compliance, elastance, and plateau pressure in both single and dual-limb invasive and noninvasive modes.

NIV has become a standard of care for the management of acute respiratory failure, but there is a risk of leaks around the mask that may interfere with ventilator performance. As a result, patient-ventilator asynchrony, defined as a mismatch between patient's inspiratory time and the ventilator insufflation time, may occur in nearly 25 per cent of intubated patients. These high rates of asynchrony can be associated with a higher incidence of weaning failure and tracheostomy, prolonged mechanical ventilation, fatigue, increased sedation needs and longer hospital stays.

The Philips Respironics V680 Ventilator joins Philips' existing portfolio of patient-centred hospital respiratory care solutions which includes the Philips Respironics V60; the Philips gold standard hospital dedicated noninvasive ventilator.

The Ventilator is now available in Canada and several European markets. The US launch is pending 510(k) clearance.