Title: Improving Pneumonia Management and Pulse Oximetry - Stop Pneumonia / Every Breath Counts
Headings: Improving Pneumonia Management and Pulse Oximetry
Improving Pneumonia Management and Pulse Oximetry
Article posted on November 29, 2016.
Successful Use of Pulse Oximetry Can Lead to Providing Lifesaving Therapies, Like Oxygen
Fast Facts
2016 Pneumonia and Diarrhea Progress Report
Improving Pneumonia Management and Pulse Oximetry
Interview with Dr. Kim Mulholland, London, UK and Melbourne, AU
Q: When it comes to pneumonia management, where is the gap?
Q: How has the availability and quality of pulse oximetry changed over time?
Q: How can appropriate use of pulse oximeters be improved?
Q: How can these lessons learned be applied to other pneumonia strategies?
Innovations: Pulse Oximetry and Oxygen Therapy
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Content: Doing pulse oximetry on a very sick child is not trivial. It has to be done properly. You have to have a continuous signal, and you have to have a proper pulse picked up by the probe and appear on the monitor, before you can consider the pulse oximeter is providing an accurate reading of the oxygen in the blood. Q: How can these lessons learned be applied to other pneumonia strategies? A: Many of the challenges with pulse oximetry are shared by other simple, lifesaving tools and interventions, like vaccines, which may be much harder to put into practice in low-income settings. Continued work on access, quality and training will bridge the gap between strategies that we know work and putting them in action. Kim Mulholland, MBBS, FRACP, MD, is a professor of child health and vaccinology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Mulholland also holds professorial posts at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne and the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin.