By Sue Kost, MD

The SPS Sedation Communication team is excited to announce a new periodic topic: Technology and gadgets. Every other month or so, we’d like to highlight a particular technology that helps to make your job easier, safer for the patient, or just more satisfying. We encourage you to submit ideas to [email protected] (also, we are seeking a technology fan to volunteer to coordinate this effort).

 

The inaugural featured gadget is one that our author found upon changing jobs, and it solves the problem of tracking end-tidal CO2 in a mouth-breathing patient with an oral airway. Maybe some of you have experienced trying to finagle a way to jam the end-tidal cannula prongs into the channel of the oral airway in a way that they would stay put. This problem is solved with a device called the CarboTrack™, an oval piece of transparent plastic that features a CO2 sampling port, holes for supplemental O2 delivery via nasal cannula prongs, suction ports, and a sticky base that exactly fits on the end of the oral airway. It can also be used with other airway adjuncts and oxygen delivery systems, such as simple face masks. See the website for more information. If you’re not already familiar with this tool, hopefully you’ll find it useful.

 

(The SPS and the author of this column have no financial relationship with the makers of this product, and deny any actual or potential conflict of interest in promoting its use).