2014 Recipient

Neurally Adjusted Ventilatory Assist (NAVA) ventilation

for the Pediatric Intensive Care & Acute Care Units

Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital is in need of a new technology that will provide better care to children in the intensive care and acute care units. Neurally Adjusted ventilatory assist (NAVA) is a new approach to mechanical ventilation based on neural respiratory output.

 

This technology will improve the synchrony between the child and the ventilator.

The act of taking a breath is controlled by the respiratory center of the brain. With NAVA,

the activity is captured, fed to the ventilator and used to assist in the patient’s breathing in synchrony with the patients own effort. Now health care professionals will be able to monitor the neurological connection to taking a breath and better assess the breathing of a patient. 

This will make it easier to monitor how much support they need and when the patient might 

be ready to be removed from ventilation.

 

Based on the operation of NAVA it is expected to increase the successful application of noninvasive ventilation to children.