“The home devices are pretty good at distinguishing when the blood oxygen oxygen levels are in the normal range,” she says. Haddad explains that the devices sold in drugstores and online are not labeled for medical use, and are instead meant for athletic training (like climbers at high-altitude) or relaxation and meditation practices. If so, your doctor may be able to prescribe a medical-grade pulse oximeter that’s more accurate than the typical options. “I do advise people at risk for severe COVID to try and get one if they become sick,” he says.Īs for buying your own pulse oximeter, Tsuang recommends first asking your doctor if that makes sense for you. “It’s always hard to know what the outcome would have been if we had not detected that drop in oxygen level even before she started having symptoms,” says Haddad, “but I’ve got to believe that was a small success.” Paul Sax, clinical director of the infectious-diseases division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, agrees that they’re a useful tool for already-diagnosed patients. In one recent situation, nurses noticed a COVID-19 patient’s oxygen saturation dipping below normal and asked her to come into the hospital, where she received supplemental oxygen. As part of the Mayo Clinic’s remote monitoring team, she prescribes pulse oximeters, along with other devices like thermometers and blood pressure cuffs, for patients to take measurements at home that are transmitted to doctors and nurses at the hospital. While Haddad stresses that pulse oximetry cannot be used to diagnose COVID-19 (only a laboratory test can do so), it can be helpful in monitoring a patient who’s already been diagnosed. Because COVID-19 and pneumonia related to the infection can cause low oxygen, oxygen monitoring is critical in more severe cases. Tsuang typically prescribes them for home use in patients with preexisting lung conditions or those who require supplemental oxygen. The normal range for oxygen saturation is 95–100 percent. “It’s an indicator of how much oxygen from the air we’re breathing into our lungs gets into the blood.” Clipped onto a fingertip, the device displays both oxygen saturation, as a percentage of red blood cells carrying oxygen, and your pulse rate. “A pulse oximeter is a medical device that measures the oxygen content in the blood,” says Tsuang.
We spoke with Wayne Tsuang, a pulmonologist at the Cleveland Clinic, and Tufia Haddad, an oncologist and member of the remote patient monitoring team at the Mayo Clinic, about what a pulse oximeter does and whether or not you should keep one in your medicine cabinet. Like thermometers, toilet paper, and face masks before them, pulse oximeters - your doctor likely clipped one on your finger during your last annual physical and you haven’t thought of it since - have become the latest product propelled to sold-out status during the coronavirus outbreak.