Automated Monitoring Reveals Underreporting of Oxygen Consumption in Electronic Medical Records

Accurate monitoring of oxygen therapy is essential for patient safety, resource management, and financial accountability. However, oxygen consumption is often underreported in manual electronic medical record (EMR) documentation. Automated monitoring technologies, such as ATAS O₂ (Salvus, Pernambuco, Brazil), have emerged as a promising solution to this limitation. This retrospective study compared oxygen consumption data recorded in the EMR with measurements obtained using ATAS O₂ across 21 hospital beds over a five-month period. The ATAS O₂ system detected a higher number of beds receiving oxygen, total consumption time per bed (median 533 vs. 48 h, p < 0.001), frequency of cycles (median 96 vs. 10, p < 0.001), mean of oxygen flow rates (median 2.19 vs. 0.58 L/min, p < 0.001), and total volume consumed per bed (median 82 vs. 1.84 L, p < 0.001). In contrast, EMR documentation captured longer mean duration per cycle (11.17 ± 12.07 vs 6.64 ± 8.20 h, p = 0.082) and higher oxygen volume consumed per cycle (median 269 vs 0.58 L, p < 0.001). These findings indicate systematic underreporting in manual EMR documentation and highlight the potential benefits of automated monitoring of oxygen therapy in improving accuracy, optimizing hospital resource management, and supporting financial oversight.