Proposal for Distributing Oximeters to Low Income Families
Lisa Maiocco
February 2021
Motivation and background:
A typical pulse oximeter.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, certain populations are facing disproportionate exposure to the virus according to their jobs, household size, and geographical location.
Minority and low income households are more likely to delay medical treatment, due to finances and concerns about poor treatment at the hospital.
With Covid -19, getting to the ER early enough is critical for successful treatment.
Most doctors are screening patients via telehealth, rather than in an in-person visit.
Without an oximeter, doctors will have less information to monitor the patient's illness.
At EndCoronaVirus.org, we believe that distributing oximeters to low income households could
achieve significant benefits, and perhaps save lives. We envision an oximeter program with the
proper support could achieve the following goals:
Collect baseline % oxygen & heart rate data before illness
Encourage patients to share their data table with their doctor
Encourage family data sharing and discussion, so caretakers will have more information in case a patient is too ill to describe their symptoms.
Knowledge of their baseline data is expected to make patients seek medical care earlier if they do get Covid-19
Identify individuals with poor oximeter readings before illness & encourage them to seek medical advice before getting Covid19. ( In some rare cases, oximeter data may detect COVID-19 earlier).
Provide facts to the patient, such as medical directives, to encourage earlier visit’s to ER.
Provide doctors with additional information about the patients exertion during normal home activities and during their normal exercise routine. Oximeter and heart rate monitoring in an office visit is usually only taken at resting conditions. The heart rate data will tell the doctor how vigorously the patient is exercising.
In summary: Oximeter data should increase the effectiveness of telehealth visits, and hopefully will lead patients to seek medical care earlier if their oximeter values drop.
Implementation - how it could work
Although we recognize that there are real barriers that lead some individuals to not seek medical care, we propose the following structure:
Households in higher Covid regions would receive oximeters and written instructions for collecting data
The data collected would include % oxygen and heart rate at the patients normal exertion levels, such as : while sitting, while doing light housework or other home activities, and during the patients normal exercise activities
Patients will be instructed to send their self-monitoring data to their doctors immediately under certain conditions
Along with the completed data table , patients will be asked to send front and back pictures of their oximeter to their physician, so the brand, model number, and condition of the oximeter is visible to the doctor.
Depending on the manufacturer(s) of the oximeters used, online videos and data collection templates may be available
Example self-monitoring log for oximeter data:
Patients can choose to record their oximeter data into either a hand-written format or to enter their oximeter data into a spreadsheet.
