Waltham, Mass. (Jan. 15, 2015) – Research to be presented at the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) 44th Annual Conference in Phoenix shows that non-invasive minute ventilation monitoring can be used to identify patients that truly have low oxygen levels.
A study of 220 post-operative patients at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital found that 64 percent of pulse oximetry alarms were false alarms, said lead author Dr. Christopher Voscopoulos, of Contra Costa Medical Center of Martinez, Calif., who is board certified in Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Management. In the six cases of real respiratory depression among the patient group, non-invasive monitoring of respiratory volume, known as minute ventilation, identified the condition before pulse oximetry monitors.