How Pulse Oximeters Work (2015)
The Royal Melbourne hospital in Australia is using pulse oximeters to manage COVID positive patients in their own homes. The program was setup in March this year to manage a large number of patients remotely (cost&#x2F;safety).<p>The patients take their own measurements with a pulse oximeter and digital thermometer (both off the shelf consumer items). The person is prompted via SMS and submit their vitals via website. A software system orchestrates all of this and alerts patients and clinicians to anyone with worrying numbers.<p>This keeps beds free at the hospital, but still gets the small percentage of patients back to hospital that get really sick.<p>It also does all the other boring monitoring and administrative work needed when you&#x27;re checking up on lots of real people.<p>Full disclosure. I worked on this project. A version has been open sourced and if you&#x27;re a hospital or other medical service you&#x27;re welcome to use our work. We&#x27;re publishing improvements as we go.
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;rmhcovid&#x2F;txtmon" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;rmhcovid&#x2F;txtmon</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thermh.org.au&#x2F;news&#x2F;royal-melbourne-hospital-implements-virtual-monitoring" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thermh.org.au&#x2F;news&#x2F;royal-melbourne-hospital-impl...</a><p>Using simple standalone devices and a low-coding platform already in use by hospitals (REDCap) the whole project was crash-built in a couple of weeks and is saving lives. That platform has many shortcomings (messier even than Excel), but there&#x27;s various medical&#x2F;privacy rules that make more traditional development unattractive for quickly prototyping. It&#x27;s been a rewarding project to work on despite many frustrations.