Product Showcase: OxyMask

So this guy is lying in a hospital bed being treated for his pneumonia, and he’s got a non-rebreather mask strapped to his face.

A nurse’s aide comes in the room, and the guy asks, “Are my testicles black?”

The aide, long since used to dirty old men, ignores him, checks his vital signs, refills his water pitcher and leaves.

Later, the respiratory therapist comes in the room to administer an albuterol nebulizer, and the guy asks again, “Are my testicles black?”

Pointedly, the respiratory therapist replies, “That’s not my area, Sir. You’ll have to ask your nurse.”

After lunch, the nurse is hanging the guy’s IV piggyback of antibiotics, and he asks, “Are my testicles black?”

The nurse leaves the room in an indignant huff, and tells the doctor that something must be done with the patient in 403.

Wearily, the doctor trudges down to the room to have a word with his patient. When the patient sees him, a look of profound relief flashes across his face, and he says, “Thank God, it’s my doctor! Tell me, are my testicles black?”

The doctor flips back the sheet, gives the man’s genitals a cursory examination, and says, “Mr. Jones, there appears to be nothing wrong with your testicles.”

The patient heaves a mighty sigh, pulls the non-rebreather mask away from his face and says, very distinctly, “Are. My. Test. Results. Back?”

**********

Riddle me this, Batman: If you could replace every oxygen delivery device on your ammalance  – every venturi mask, simple face mask, partial rebreather, nasal cannula and non-rebreather –  and replace it with a device that does the work of all those things, is less claustrophobic for the patient, and prevents you from mistakenly checking your patient’s testicles, would you do it?

Yeah, I thought so.

The OxyMask is a nifty little doohickey I’ve seen at the past few trade shows I’ve attended, and the device intrigues me somewhat.

Pictured: pediatric, adult, and multi-OxyMask, suitable for aerosolized medications.

Basically, it’s a skeletonized oxygen mask, fitted with a proprietary venturi system that allows delivery of oxygen concentrations ranging from 24%-90%, depending upon flow rate. That encompasses the practical oxygen delivery concentrations of everything from nasal cannulas to non-rebreathers, folks. Plus, you can suction through ’em!

Using a separate adaptor, they’ll allow end-tidal waveform capnography with any monitor that uses Oridion’s CO2 monitoring technology. Sadly, no such adaptor exists for you folks using Zoll monitors.

Here at The Borg, we stock our rig shelves with at least 6 nasal cannulas, 6 non-rebreather masks, and 6 hand-held nebulizers, and if we need a nebulizer/mask combo, we have to cannibalize a non-rebreather to do it.

We could do the same thing with a half dozen each of the pediatric and adult OxyMulti Masks, and take at least 24 otherwise superfluous hunks of plastic off our rigs.

The company even has a variant that looks just like a telephone operator’s headset, for the occasional patient with facial burns or trauma.

For an oxygen delivery geek like me, this thing just looks neater than kitten toes. I think I’m gonna have to plant a bug in the ear of The Borg’s product review committee, and see if we can’t get a few of these things to play with.

Any of you EMTs out there use ’em in your system? What are your thoughts?