Clamp-on Flowmeters in Hospitals for Oxygen Monitoring

Background

Since the Coronavirus / COVID-19 outbreak, the UK's NHS hospitals have had a concern about the limitation in oxygen flow, especially with the increased use of high flow devices such as ventilators and the significant increase in ICU beds across NHS facilities. Due to these concerns, and the limitations with the existing telemetry on the VIE (Vacuum Insulated Evaporator), NHS facilities have seen the importance of having their own live telemetry reporting O2 flow rates through their systems.

FLEXIM, a world-wide leader in the field of non-invasive ultrasonic flow measurement with ultrasound, has provided a solution. FLEXIM O2 flowmeters are simply clamped onto existing copper pipework, making installations fast and easy, plus eliminating the possibility of new leak paths.

In combination with integration into local medical gas pipeline systems (MGPS) or building management systems (BMS), the instantaneous O2 flow data from the FLEXIM meters allows remote access to live oxygen consumption data and alerts if there's a alarm condition. Usage in each hospital ward, along with total site usage is now constantly available for local effective management of critical O2 demand. Data such as live, peak and average flows across various legs of the hospitals’ O2 system can all be fed into the operational command to assist with proactively managing the O2 being prescribed to patients based on the known limits of the oxygen system.

The Benefits of FLEXIM Clamp-on Flow Meters for Oxygen Monitoring in Hospitals:

• Live oxygen consumption data across many sites
• Improved O2 usage visibility
• Proactive O2 management minimizing negative patient impact
• Portable O2 meters also available from FLEXIM for spot checks across sites