From Yale Medicine.
Should you buy a pulse oximeter?
There is debate among doctors about whether or not people need a pulse oximeter in their medical supply kits at home. “In normal times, unless a patient has true lung disease, there is no need for them to use pulse oximetry monitoring,” says Denyse Lutchmansingh, MD, a Yale Medicine pulmonologist. But these aren’t normal times. The American Lung Association advises against buying pulse oximeters unnecessarily and recommends people focus their awareness on other COVID-19 symptoms. However, in a recent New York Times opinion piece, an emergency physician from New Hampshire said if resources were directed toward earlier detection of silent hypoxia, doctors could do more to keep those patients off ventilators.
At this point, Dr. Lutchmansingh says the benefits of pulse oximetry monitoring are most clear among patients who have COVID-19 symptoms such as cough, fever, and shortness of breath. “If you are symptomatic that is a reasonable time to check your oxygen. That is something we’ve been trying to do from an outpatient standpoint,” she says. “We have COVID-19 patients who we are monitoring at home and one of the deciding factors for bringing them into the hospital is their oxygen level.”
– Cough, Shortness of breath.