The FREO2 Oxylink System
Impact Through Innovation
The FREO2 Oxylink system is designed for healthcare facilities that have access to electricity, however, experience frequent power outages.
Timely and uninterrupted oxygen therapy is essential to reducing childhood mortality from pneumonia. The continuity of supply is critical to achieving positive health outcomes for the patient, with a hypoxic child likely suffering brain injury after 3 minutes or death beyond 10 minutes without oxygen supply.
The Oxylink system has been developed specifically for low-resource settings and provides a continuous flow of oxygen to patients, even during a power outage. The system reduces the use of expensive oxygen cylinders, dramatically decreasing the cost of oxygen therapy treatment per patient, and collects live data on oxygen delivery.
FREO2 Oxylink-5
The Oxylink-5 unit is a FREO2 oxygen concentrator, specifically designed for low-resource health clinics in challenging environments that experience unstable electricity or prolonged blackouts. The Oxylink-5 features many unique technologies specifically included to facilitate the target application:
The FREO2 PRIORITISER system is integrated into all concentrators and automatically switches the oxygen source to a backup oxygen cylinder in the event of power loss, ensuring continuity of supply.
The concentrator has a dedicated air intake port and filter, to prevent compressor failure in dusty environments and allows additional upstream filters to be incorporated in the system.
The Oxylink-5 also communicates all its sensor data with the FREO2 Remote Monitoring Unit (FRMU), allowing fleet management of the concentrators to support the FREO2 Hub and Spoke in-country maintenance strategy.
FREO2 Protect
The FREO2 Protect stabilises the energy supply to prevent damage to the Oxylink system that may be caused by under or oversupply, spikes, surges or other instabilities in the electrical network.
Between 180 and 253 volts, Protect conditions the supply back to 230 volts (within a tolerance band) to prevent damage to the concentrators caused by over/undersupply. When Protect senses potential power damage to the Oxylink-5 concentrator, it will automatically switch the supply source to a backup cylinder.
FREO2 Oxygen Distribution System (ODS)
In the hospital ward, the patient receives FREO2 enabled oxygen from the Oxygen Distribution System (ODS) Flowbox.
ODS pipes oxygen at low pressure to the bedside, avoiding costly copper piping, simplifying installation and maintenance, and dramatically minimising losses due to leakage.
A nurse can monitor and adjust individual patient oxygen supply using the ODS flowbox by the patient’s bedside. This enables health care workers to efficiently and easily deliver oxygen to patients without needing to move concentrators and cylinders around the ward.
FREO2 Stack Lamp
The FREO2 Stack Lamp is connected to the Oxylink system and indicates the status of the oxygen supply to nurses and clinicians.
Green indicates that the oxygen is flowing from the Oxylink-5 system.
Yellow indicates that the oxygen is flowing from a backup oxygen supply.
Red flashing indicates an issue with the system prompting health care workers in the ward to contact a service technician.
FREO2 Remote Monitoring Unit (FRMU)
Information on oxygen flow rates, purity levels and pressures is collected by the FREO2 Remote Monitoring Unit (FRMU).
Data collected from the FRMU is automatically delivered to the cloud, so FREO2 teams can track impact, oxygen delivery, and gather data to manage system maintenance and detect faults for maintenance.
FREO2 Snorkel
The FREO2 Snorkel device is an additional filtration system to allow the Oxylink-5 to operate in extremely dusty environments, and to prolong the life of the medical grade filter in the concentrator.
The Snorkel features three additional filtration stages; the first is a coarse mesh to prevent the ingress of insects and other pests, the second is a foam washable filter, with the third being a low-cost replaceable air-conditioning type air filter. The Snorkel connects to two Oxylink-5 concentrators using off the shelf medical air hoses, and through the significant increase in filtration surface, extends the replacement interval of the medical filter on the concentrators, while presenting negligible increased upstream pressure on the concentrator itself.