Clinical application. Using oxygenation profiles to manage patients

Cellular oxygenation is dependent on both tissue oxygenation and pulmonary oxygenation. The use of profiles can help to make the assessment of tissue and pulmonary oxygenation more thorough. Although oxygenation profiles have limitations, an understanding of them can provide useful information to the critical care nurse. Oxygenation profiles enable the nurse to trend a patient's progress and response to nursing and medical interventions. A sophisticated assessment relies not merely on physical assessment alone but incorporates continuous mixed venous oxygenation and oxygenation profiles to assess a patient's tissue and pulmonary oxygenation status.