A comparison of manual versus automated saturation of peripheral oxygenation in the neonatal intensive care unit

Abstract

Background: It is vital to maintain the saturation of peripheral oxygenation (SpO₂) in a targeted range in extremely premature infants to improve survival without significant morbidities.

Objectives: To compare manual versus automated monitor documentations of daily upper and lower values of SpO₂ in premature infants.

Methods: In a prospective observational study, the highest and lowest daily SpO₂ manually recorded values from electronic medical records were compared with automatically recorded values from bedside cardiorespiratory monitors.

Results: Eighteen infants were monitored for 605 patient days, with a mean birth weight of 859 ± 183 g, and gestational age of 26.0 ± 1.3 wks. Within the lowest SpO₂ values, manually recorded values were consistently higher than the simultaneous automatically recorded monitor values. The highest SpO₂ point differences in documentation was seen in patients with SpO₂ range ≤ 70% (16 ± 13 points), followed by 71–80% (10 ± 7 points) and 81–90% (7 ± 4 points); p < 0.01.

Conclusions: The difference between manually and automatically recorded SpO₂ is large in lower SpO₂ ranges and small in higher SpO₂ ranges. Automated oxygen administering systems should be considered to reduce potential errors.

• Automated
• manual
• monitor
• neonatal
• prematurity
• saturation of peripheral oxygenation

Declaration of interest

The authors report no declarations of interest.