Pulse oximeter

Nurses General Nursing

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Hi out there, Does anyone work on a floor where they use pulse oximeters but have no central monitoring? How do you make sure the staff can hear the oximeters? Do you keep them close to the station? We have used baby monitors. Thanks!

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Specializes in PACU, OR.

Not on a floor, but we do use pulse oximeters in PACU, no central monitoring. I can understand it may be a problem hearing them in a busy unit.

The volume of the alarm can usually be set higher and lower, so if it drops below 90% it should be audible. Have you tried doing that to see how far away it can be heard on a busy day?

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We do not use pulse oximeters for continuous monitoring on the floors where there is not a central monitoring system. If it can not be heard and responded to in a timely manner, that device will make for an excellent witness in court. So, if you plan on using it on the floors, make sure you have a clear P&P for alarms parameters and responsibilities. Just because a doctor ordered it will not cover you. The same for those using a portable ETCO2 monitor. There must be a clear P&P, it must be set appropriately, easily heard and people must be made aware they should respond regardless of whose patient it is

The only exception we make for using a pulse oximeter on the floors with alarms muted or outside of normal parameters is during a bedside sleep study. However the patient must meet certain criteria for safety with their medical conditions to bypass having the study done in a monitored sleep lab. For these studies it is not uncommon for a patient's SpO2 to regularly drop into the low 80s or 70s with 20 seconds of apnea or longer. The biggest complaint RTs have with these studies is finding their patients on a NRB mask on their next check.

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Specializes in Endoscopy/MICU/SICU.

We do use them on the floor without central monitoring, but put the patient near the nurses station and set the volume on high. If the alarm goes off, it's so loud we cannot miss it.

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We just set the volume on high...our unit is not so large that you can't hear it.

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Specializes in PCU/Telemetry.

On our post-ops, we wire the O2 sat and end tidal co2 monitor to the call light system and if the numbers drop too low the call light alerts us.

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Specializes in PACU, OR.
On our post-ops, we wire the O2 sat and end tidal co2 monitor to the call light system and if the numbers drop too low the call light alerts us.

How is that wired-is it built in to the system or do you have an independent interface?

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Specializes in PCU/Telemetry.
How is that wired-is it built in to the system or do you have an independent interface?

The end-tidal co2/pulse ox machines have an adapter that we plug into the call light system and then we set the alarms for whatever parameters we want to be notified of. It's very helpful, except when you have a patient on the end tifal co2 monitor who keeps removing their oxygen ("because it's annoying me") and their call bell is going off every 2 seconds...

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Specializes in Pediatric/Adolescent, Med-Surg.
Hi out there, Does anyone work on a floor where they use pulse oximeters but have no central monitoring? How do you make sure the staff can hear the oximeters? Do you keep them close to the station? We have used baby monitors. Thanks!

I sometimes float to a floor that does pulse ox with no central monitors. They simply try to place the bedside pulse ox near the window and keep the curtain open. However this floor does have double rooms, so I don't know what they do when someone in bed 2 needs a pulse ox.

Forgot to add, some of the other units do have the pulse ox feed fed into a pager system, so you could at least get a "page" when the pt's pulse ox level drops. However this unit has no paging system and no central monitoring station.

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