Are O2 sats a vital sign?

[roxhannah]

Can I ask a quick question of any inpatient nurses. Does your floor (I am mostly looking at med/surg and PCU/stepdown) consider O2 sats a vitals sign (completed on every patient with their HR and temp etc) or does it have to be ordered separately by the physician that the o2 sats are checked? If it does have to be ordered separately, are the nurses responsible for it or your respiratory therapists? I work for a large, top 10 hospital, and I find it so strange that their requirements are not the same I have experienced at other facilities.

[Ado Annie, ASN, RN]

When I worked for a large teaching hospital, the CNAs were not allowed to chart O2 saturation. Nurses had to do it. I never understood why. (reason given: it's part of an "assessment")

[RNKPCE]

I remember long ago> 28 years, when only RT had access to pulse ox. It was rare to get an RT to do one without an order.

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

Everywhere I've worked considered oxygen saturation as a vital sign. Even when I was a CNA I was able to use pulse oximetry and chart it; of course I was expected to inform the nurse if O2 sats were out of whack, just like any other VS. (I was also allowed to set up oxygen and turn on the flow per MD orders as part of the admission process if the patient needed it. My hospital was one of the first in my area to have CNA 2's.)

Now, you can't go to any medical establishment without encountering the pulse ox. They're even available in pharmacies for home use; my sister checks hers every day because she's on O2 24/7 and tends to decompensate rapidly if she takes it off for any length of time. Makes a simple shower a risky undertaking. Damn cigarettes...but that's a story for another day.