Conversations with Keith and Courtney: Oxygen, Part 3: Patient Monitoring During Oxygen Delivery

In the last of the 3 episodes on oxygen, Keith and Courtney discuss how we can monitor the concentration of oxygen our patient is receiving and also how to monitor our patient’s oxygenation levels – both manually and with a machine.  We can “flip the lip” (but human eyesight can’t detect cyanosis for quite some time), use our pulse oximeter or run a blood gas analysis. Assuming the patient has normal haemoglobin levels. Anaemia, carbon monoxide poisoning from a house fire and even an overdose of certain everyday drugs can affect functional haemoglobin availability!    They finish this episode highlighting the importance of using an oxygen concentrator in a circle breathing system, and why we initially have high fresh gas flows to remove the nitrogen sitting in the tubing and carbon dioxide absorbing canister. 

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