Introduction of pulse oximetry in the air medical setting

The importance of adequate oxygenation in critically ill patients is widely recognized. Pulse oximetry (PO) is a non-invasive, rapid technique of arterial hemoglobin oxygen saturation (SaO2) measurement. This report is a review of our experience using the PO during air medical transport. A chart review was conducted on patients who used air medical transport between October 1988 and March 1989. Types of patients included trauma and ICU patients who were transported from either accident scenes or outlying hospitals. SaO2 and vital sign (VS) measurements were obtained pre and postflight, and inflight interventions were documented. Four groups of patients were identified: Group 1: PO used, inflight intervention employed; Group II: PO used, no inflight intervention employed; Group III: no PO used, inflight intervention employed; Group IV: no PO used, no inflight intervention employed. A dependent, paired-t-test was used to compare pre and postflight SaO2 and VS measurements. The mean difference between pre and postflight measurements of SaO2, systolic blood pressure, and pulse rate were calculated within each group. Then, an ANOVA with post-hoc Newman-Keuls Test compared the means between the four groups. Of the 137 patients reviewed, 82 used PO and 55 patients did not due to technical or anatomic problems. Of the 82 patients who used PO, 19 received an inflight intervention.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)