PulseOx is great for trending treatments. If the pt starts out at 90%, and after your treatment is sat'ing in the mid-90's, that's a very useful datapoint.
There are a few extremely important caveats with pulse oximetry. PulseOx is useless if your patient isn't perfusing their periphery well (either due to hypothermia, or shock). You also need to consider that it only measures the percentage of hemoglobin that is bound to _something_, that something could just as easily be carbon monoxide. The other commonly overlooked issue is that certain types of lights (fluorescent lights are the worst offender) play havoc with pulseox meters. Your average fluorescent light will happily sat in the mid-80's. Be sure to cover the finger (or toe) that the sensor is on with something opaque.
There are a few extremely important caveats with pulse oximetry. PulseOx is useless if your patient isn't perfusing their periphery well (either due to hypothermia, or shock). You also need to consider that it only measures the percentage of hemoglobin that is bound to _something_, that something could just as easily be carbon monoxide. The other commonly overlooked issue is that certain types of lights (fluorescent lights are the worst offender) play havoc with pulseox meters. Your average fluorescent light will happily sat in the mid-80's. Be sure to cover the finger (or toe) that the sensor is on with something opaque.