A few weeks ago I was told about a new app that calculates oxygen tank durations. Immdeitely thinking it would help me, I pulled out my phone, went to the app store and downloaded it. The name of the app is O2 to Go. It's put out by Responsive Respiratory. Responsive primarily manufactures oxygen tank regulators. As the app was downloading, I thought to myself "I'll never again be scrambling for a tank chart or trying to make some crazy calculation based on tank volume". As I would soon discover there was a slight problem with this theory. Using charts and doing calculations was all I knew. After nearly 6 years in the industry those things have been ingrained in me. Basically what happened was two minutes after I would figure out how much O2 a patient had remaining I would remember the app. That being said let me tell you about the app.
The O2 to Go app has four tabs on the bottom labeled; home, equipment, cyl-fil system and contact us. If you're going to use this app on a regular basis the home tab is where you're going to live. No pun intended. The equipment and cyl-fil tabs basically advertise Responsive's product line. I will say rather unobtrusively for a free app. The contact us tab is self explanatory.
The home tab is the tank duration calculator. The calculator asks you to make selections in four categories. First being O2 device. The O2 device is the regulator type. For example, a 5:1 ratio or a pedi regulator. The second category is liter flow. The liter flow options will change based on what "O2 device" is selected. The third and fourth categories are cylinder size and cylinder % full. I'm impressed with the amount of options in the cylinder size section. They have a couple tank sizes that I've never seen before. Cylinder % full keeps is simple. The options are; full, 75%, 50%, and 25%. The down side to keeping it simple is when a patient tells you they have a third of a tank left. This did happen to me. So I simply rounded down to 25%. When the tank lasts a little longer, the patient will be happy.
A couple of side notes. You must fill the first category to fill the second and so on. The results of the calculation will automatically appear in a blue box labeled Cylinder Duration. The app is available for iphone and android. Just search Responsive Respiratory in the App Store or Android Market. As you may have guessed I did break my habit of looking at charts. Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think of the app.
Reviewed By
Dana Lesperance
