scope:

This document establishes a vocabulary of terms and semantics for all fields of respiratory care involving mechanical ventilation, such as intensive-care ventilation, anaesthesia ventilation, emergency and transport ventilation and home-care ventilation, including sleep-apnoea breathing-therapy equipment. It is applicable - in lung ventilator and breathing-therapy device standards, - in health informatics standards, - for labelling on medical electrical equipment and medical electrical systems, - in medical electrical equipment and medical electrical system instructions for use and accompanying documents, - for medical electrical equipment and medical electrical systems interoperability, and - in electronic health records. This document is also applicable to those accessories intended by their manufacturer to be connected to a ventilator breathing system or to a ventilator, where the characteristics of those accessories can affect the basic safety or essential performance of the ventilator and ventilator breathing system. NOTE - This document can also be used for other applications relating to lung ventilation, including non-electrical devices and equipment, research, description of critical events, forensic analysis and adverse event (vigilance) reporting systems. This document does not specify terms specific to breathing-therapy equipment, or to physiologic closed-loop ventilation, high-frequency ventilation or negative-pressure ventilation; nor to respiratory support using liquid ventilation or extra-corporeal gas exchange, or oxygen, except where it has been considered necessary to establish boundaries between bordering concepts.