The Dynamic Ventilator Reserve is a public-private collaboration between the American Hospital Association, the federal government and leading group purchasing organizations. This program brings together hospitals and health systems from across the country to contribute a portion of their ventilator fleets to share with facilities experiencing shortages.

The DVR was activated again to help us to distribute available ventilators and associated supplies to areas with high rates of hospitalization and severe illness. These changes are due largely to the spread of the Delta variant.

The Delta variant is more than two times as contagious as previous variants, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some data suggest the Delta variant might cause more severe illness than previous strains in unvaccinated persons.

This program accepts ICU ventilators, advance transports, basic transport, bipap and cpap.

Yes. The program allows systems to designate, by make/model, only those ventilators they wish to add to the DVR for others’ use. Furthermore, inventory can be adjusted as availability of ventilators changes within the organization.

Participants can view when individual pieces in the inventory are marked in use once the ventilator is being used with a patient.

As requests are made of the DVR, they are matched against the inventory. The AHA then sends notification when there is a match.

Medical equipment intermediaries handle site-to-site transport.

The AHA highly recommends that all ventilators be uploaded. This prevents systems from having to upload multiple times and reduces burden.

Yes. Many DVR participants have inventory spread across several sites. The program can accommodate serving one request from multiple lender sites.

Ventilators are transported between facilities as needs arise and requests are received.

While the DVR is maintained and managed by the AHA, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) receive updates for situational awareness.