Oxygen guidelines
Oxygen guidelines recommend “swimming between the flags
The Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand (TSANZ) has released new guidelines on the acute use of oxygen in adults. The guidelines promote the titration of oxygen therapy to achieve a target level of oxygen saturation, rather than the current practice of routinely administering high flow oxygen regardless of need.
Professor Richard Beasley, Director of the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand and senior author of the guideline team said “The swimming between the flags concept guides doctors, nurses and other health professionals to prescribe oxygen only if required, and to within a target oxygen saturation range. It recognises that there are potential risks, not only associated with not enough oxygen, but also with too much oxygen therapy”.
The TSANZ guidelines represent a combination of two years’ work in which a team comprehensively reviewed the medical literature to define the recommendations that health professionals who administer oxygen therapy should follow. This initiative responded to concerns that the common practice of administering high flow oxygen to patients regardless of need may pose real risks and lead to bad outcomes. “We need to up our game” said Professor Beasley, “and accept that oxygen should be considered a drug that is prescribed and administered for specific indications with regular monitoring of the patient’s response”.
The TSANZ President, Professor Peter Gibson, said “More is not better when it comes to delivering oxygen to ill or distressed patients. These guidelines are evidence-based best practice and should be utilised by all healthcare professionals who use oxygen therapy with patients”.
Find the open access full text publication here:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/resp.12620/full
Contacts:
Richard Beasley
Director, Medical Research Institute of New Zealand
Email: Richard.Beasley@mrinz.ac.nz