Oxygen prescription and safe administration on respiratory wards

Oxygen Delivery on Medical Wards

Oxygen is used widely used on all medical wards. It is a drug and should be prescribed. There are known problems with over and under delivery of oxygen to patients. Through national audits and recording baseline data locally, compliance with prescribing is low. This has potentially serious patient safety issues. This quality improvement project attempted to improve oxygen prescribing and subseq...

Uncontrolled oxygen administration and respiratory failure in acute asthma.

STUDY OBJECTIVES To determine if 100% oxygen administration adversely influences gas exchange in acutely ill asthmatic subjects. DESIGN Prospective preinterventional and postinterventional comparison. SETTING University hospital emergency department. PATIENTS Thirty-seven asthmatic subjects seeking care for symptomatic exacerbations. INTERVENTIONS Twenty minutes of 100% oxygen administr...

Transtracheal oxygen therapy: an effective and safe alternative to nasal oxygen administration.

Transtracheal oxygen therapy (TTOT) improves the efficiency of oxygen delivery and overcomes the discomfort associated with nasal oxygen delivery in patients on long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT). In addition, TTOT improves compliance and quality of life, and may reduce morbidity. Experience with TTOT in Europe is, however, scarce and the safety of TTOT has not yet been completely determined. Thes...

Are tracheostomized patients safe on regular hospital wards?

Consensus guidelines for the safe prescription and administration of oral bowel-cleansing agents.

Oral bowel-cleansing preparations are used before colonic surgery and endoscopic and radiological assessment of the intestine to minimise faecal contamination. In February 2009, the UK National Patient Safety Agency issued a Rapid Response Report highlighting the potential risk of harm associated with the use of these preparations and instructing local NHS Trusts to implement safeguards to redu...