Prisma Health Innovation: VESper™

The VESper™ Ventilator Expansion Splitter is an innovative device introduced early in the COVID-19 pandemic by Prisma Health and colleagues due to an anticipated severe ventilator shortage facing the country at the time.

Prisma Health, Johnson & Johnson, and the VESper team obtained Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Emergency Use Authorization (EAU) for the VESper ventilator splitter in Spring, 2020.

As providers became more experienced in treating COVID-19 patients, as well as increasing COVID-19 testing and public health educational awareness measures, the immediate need for the VESper device was resolved, the demand for the devices declined, and no recipient of the devices reported any clinical use. Therefore, FDA’s EUA was rescinded on August 28, 2020.