Bloom Energy and Almo Corporation today announced they are joining forces to refurbish unused, out-of-warranty ventilators and ship them to state agencies and hospitals throughout the country, particularly as an increasing number of patients experience critical respiratory issues as a result of COVID-19.

As part of this process, Bloom is refurbishing the ventilators, while Almo is using its national logistics network to ship the ventilators to/from Bloom’s manufacturing facilities in California and Delaware for refurbishment and out to the state agencies and hospitals that need them the most.

Bloom Energy, CEO, K.R. Sridhar discussed this on CNBC on Friday — here’s the interview:

The Society of Critical Care Medicine estimates that 960,000 coronavirus patients in the U.S. may need to be put on ventilators, but there are only about 200,000 such working machines available. According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, there are 12,700 ventilators in the national “stockpile,” but thousands more sit idle, having reached their end-of-service life.

Bloom is working with biomedical engineers at Stanford Health Care to test the functionality of its refurbished ventilators. Just last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom reached out to Sridhar for support. By Friday, the state had given Bloom Energy 24 unused, idle ventilators. Overnight, Bloom engineers figured out how to fix them and completely refurbished all 24 by Saturday afternoon. With that turnaround time, the Company estimates it could refurbish up to one thousand a week.

Almo, a national distributor of appliances, A/V equipment, furniture and housewares, has more than 2.5 million square feet of distribution space in eight warehouses across the country.

“Our focus has always been on family — the health and safety of our local community and people of this nation is our priority now and we want to do what we can to help in this time of crisis,” said Warren Chaiken, president and CEO, Almo Corporation. “Our logistics processes are organized and efficient, which puts us in a great position to receive the refurbished ventilators from Bloom and quickly get them to state agencies and healthcare facilities so they can be immediately put to use.”

If you have or know of any organizations that have out-of-service ventilators, would like to partner with Bloom and Almo on this effort, or to learn more, go here, email ventilators@bloomenergy.com or call its hotline at +1 (888) 544-2644

Bloom Energy is here and Almo Corporation is here.

 

Please watch our videcast with Almo CEO Warren Chaiken below for more information