You are here

Medical Device

Primary tabs

The mission of this working group is to focus on discussions about medical devices.

The mission of this working group is to focus on discussions about medical devices.

Members

Kathy Gilbeaux mdmcdonald

Email address for group

medical-device@m.resiliencesystem.org

Pulse Oximeter Devices Have Higher Error Rate in Black Patients--New study

Pulse oximeters are one of the most commonly used tools in medicine. The small devices, which resemble a clothespin, measure blood oxygen when clipped onto a fingertip, and they can quickly indicate whether a patient needs urgent medical care.

Health providers use them when they take vital signs and when they evaluate patients for treatment. Ever since the pandemic started, doctors have encouraged patients with Covid to use them at home.

But in Black patients, the devices can provide misleading results in more than one in 10 people, according to a new study.

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Spit in a Tube and Mail It In: A New Frontier in Coronavirus Testing

FULLERTON, Calif. — The post-Thanksgiving rush for coronavirus testing is on: Pharmacies in the Southern California suburbs are advising customers lucky enough to score appointments that it could be four days before they receive results. In Chelsea, Mass., a line of people who hoped for testing, pelted by rain and wind, strung along an entire block early this week. In Atlanta, people have idled in cars, sometimes for hours, to get swabbed at drive-throughs.

Testing has long been one of the keys to controlling the spread of a virus that with the onset of winter is entering its most dangerous phase. Yet even as cases per capita have rocketed, securing a test has become enough of an ordeal that many people have been dissuaded from even trying.

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

WHO fine-tunes advice on COVID masks for public, health workers

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization on Wednesday tightened guidelines on wearing face masks, recommending that, where COVID-19 is spreading, they be worn by everyone in health care facilities and for all interactions in poorly-ventilated indoor spaces.

In June, the WHO urged governments to ask everyone to wear fabric masks in indoor and outdoor public areas where there was a risk of transmission of the virus.

Since then, a second global wave of the epidemic has gathered pace. In all, more than 63 million people globally have caught COVID-19 and 1.475 million died of it, according to a Reuters tally.

In more detailed advice published on Wednesday, the WHO said that, where the epidemic was spreading, people - including children and students aged 12 or over - should always wear masks in shops, workplaces and schools that lack adequate ventilation, and when receiving visitors at home in poorly ventilated rooms.

Masks should also be worn outdoors and in well ventilated indoor spaces where physical distancing of at least one meter (3 ft) could not be maintained.

In all scenarios, masks - which protect against transmission of the virus rather than infection - needed to be accompanied by other precautions such as hand-washing, the WHO said.

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Time to Upgrade Your Mask?

Is it time to upgrade your mask?

By now most of us have settled on a preferred cloth mask to protect ourselves and others from coronavirus. But new research shows that a few simple upgrades in fabric, filters and fit are likely to provide even more protection.

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Pages

howdy folks