10 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • APRIL 2020
COVER FEATURE
LI INNOVATORS WIELD SHARP MINDS, CUTTING-
BY TIMOTHY BOLGER
AND CLAUDE SOLNIK
With thousands of COVID-19 patients
flooding Long Island’s more than two
dozen hospitals and the need for ventilators
turning desperate nationwide, a
physician, a respiratory therapist, and
a 3D printing bioengineer in Manhasset
put their heads together and had a
potentially life-saving eureka moment.
On March 31, the trio of Northwell
Health staffers figured out how to convert
a bilevel positive airway pressure
(BiPAP) device — a widely used piece of
medical equipment used to maintain
consistent breathing for people with
sleep apnea, congestive heart failure,
and other ailments — into a ventilator.
Upon learning of the development, Gov.
Andrew Cuomo, who’s been rushing to
increase the number of ventilators in
New York State from about 3,000 to the
40,000 that could be needed when the
virus is expected to peak in mid-April,
ordered 7,000 BiPAP machines to help
meet that goal.
“We’re still in it,” the governor said
at one of his daily coronavirus news
briefings while touting the idea and
others, such as converting anesthesia
machines into ventilators and having
two patients per ventilator. “We’re creative
and we’re working and figuring
it out. And I'm still hopeful that at the
end of the day we’ll have what we need.”
Despite the exponentially rising coronavirus
caseload forcing hospitals to
erect medical tents to triage patients,
use refrigerated trucks to store the
dead, and convert conference rooms
into treatment areas, several LI innovators
have offered glimmers of hope
in the race to develop COVID-19 treatments,
vaccines, and rapid-result tests.
TEST OF TIME
Testing is key to the strategy of identifying
people who’ve contracted the virus,
isolating them, and determining who
they may have spread it to — but until
recently, testing options were limited
and results slow.
As of press time in early April, the
Island had five drive-through test sites
at Jones Beach State Park, Stony Brook
Drs. Stanley John, Hugh Cassiere, and Todd Goldstein converted a BiPAP machine into a ventilator and shared
instructions on how to 3D print a hard-to-find t-valve that others will need to replicate the efforts. (Northwell
Health photo)
University, and ProHEALTH Care’s
urgent care locations in Jericho, Riverhead,
and Lake Success.
“We don’t think this is gonna be a matter
of weeks,” Dr. Zeyad Baker, president
and CEO of ProHEALTH Care, told the
Press in mid-March. He anticipates the
need for such test sites will run for “a
few months.”
The first private lab in the nation that
the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) authorized to
perform COVID-19 tests last month
was Northwell Lab, after the federal
agency belatedly approved that the
Empire State do its own testing, clearing
up a national testing bottleneck at the
CDC’s labs in Georgia. Once Northwell
got the green light, it hit the ground
running — literally opening the state’s
first drive-through test site in the early
hotspot of New Rochelle.
“At Northwell we have a phrase that we
use … "We're made for this,’” Northwell
Health President and CEO Michael
Dowling told reporters during the
grand opening of that site. “We will deal
with this issue practically … I have no
doubt that we will be in the front lines of
innovation, creativity, and eventually
succeed.”
RUSH HOUR
While the drive-through sites help increase
the volume of tests performed
and identify more patients, several local
companies are working to get tests that
offer quicker results into the hands of
those performing them.
Melville-based Henry Schein is shipping
COVID-19 tests that can give
results within 15 minutes from blood
taken with a pinprick. The Standard Q
COVID-19 IgM/IgG Rapid Test is made
by South Korea-based SD Biosensor.
Henry Schein had several hundred
thousand tests available by March 30
and planned to significantly increase
availability in April.
“This pandemic is an unprecedented
situation and making rapid diagnostic
tools available to healthcare professionals
is critical for detecting and mitigating
the spread of the coronavirus,”
Henry Schein CEO Stanley Bergman
said. “There is urgent need for rapid
testing to quickly identify large numbers
of previously infected patients, including
asymptomatic carriers. This is
important to reduce and prevent virus
transmission, assure timely treatment
of patients, and help return our citizens
to the workforce.”
"We're made for this,” said Michael Dowling.
/LONGISLANDPRESS.COM
