While on my rural placement we had a patient who the Doctors had decided needed home oxygen. We saw this in his notes, so decided it would be helpful to do a 6 minute walk test to assess how many litres the patient would require with his home O2. However when we went to visit the patient he was packing up to go home as he had been discharged by one of the nurses. We asked him about the plans for his home oxygen and he said it had been organised that someone was going to drop it off to his farm but he had no idea as how to use and what strength to use it on. We called to inquire as to who would be dropping it off and discovered they would be giving him a run down as to how to use it, but they were not sure as to what setting he was to have it on either. Being a bloke the most likely thing he would do is 'crank it up' to the max airflow as he hadn't been told any different. As we know this could have severe consequences in a chronic COPD patients who rely on the hypoxic drive to breathe.
Furthermore we discovered that this patient had not being properly d/c and the nurse who said he could go had not spoken with anyone else and the patient had left without his presciption for medications.
Overall i think this situation highlights the importance of communication between all of the Allied health team, to firstly ensure that this man is properly d/c and additionally so that he has had appropriate evaluation of the need for home O2 and what parametres he would require to get the optimal benefit and have no negative effects.
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