In our daily lives, we rely on automated feedback systems to control many commonly used devices that require constant adjustments such as our hot water, home heating, and refrigeration systems. On the other hand, it is known that fully automated “driverless” control systems for cars, trucks, and buses have been tested successfully in controlled environments; and we have been told for many years that their routine implementation is just around the corner, but, year after year, we seem no closer to reaching this goal. In the medical world, automated feedback systems are increasingly being deployed successfully for regulatory tasks such as the control of blood glucose for patients with type 1 diabetes and for dispensing medicines. This editorial outlines how automated feedback can improve the routine administration of oxygen therapy and may become a commonplace technology used in hospitals in the near future.
Review of the current status of automated oxygen administration systems: It is widely recommended that patients with hypoxemia should have oxygen supplemented to maintain SpO2 within a prescribed target range.1,-,3 Achieving this at the bedside relies on having a good-quality pulse oximeter and the availability of skilled health care professionals that appreciate the known risks of both hypoxemia and hyperoxemia and can manually adjust the oxygen flow according to a patient’s need. Whereas this targeted approach to oxygen delivery is widely recommended in international guidelines and institutional policies, it is often performed inaccurately, with observational studies reporting that the proportion of time spent within target SpO2 range in many hospital care settings is only about 56–69%.4,5 The poor performance of our current manual systems for administering oxygen represents a failure in the translation of evidence-based guidelines into real-world clinical practice and has spurred the development …
Correspondence: B Ronan O’Driscoll MD, Respiratory Medicine, Salford Royal Hospital, Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, Stott Lane, Salford M6 8HD, United Kingdom. E-mail: ronan.o%E2%80%99driscoll{at}nca.nhs.uk
Pay Per Article - You may access this article (from the computer you are currently using) for 1 day for US$30.00
Regain Access - You can regain access to a recent Pay per Article purchase if your access period has not yet expired.
