Search Optiflow FAQs

How should I monitor patients on nasal high flow?


Evidence shows that when nasl high flow (NHF) is applied early enough (in patients who respond to therapy), you should see improvement in oxygenation, Respiratory Rate (RR), and dyspnea within 15-30 mins. Monitoring should continue beyond this, of course. 

The recent addition of the ROX index, calculated from 3 data points collected at the bedside, can provide an indicator of NHF outcome in the first few hours of treatment and beyond. 
Please read about the ROX Index and learn about/download our education tools (2 mobile apps). 

Protocols based on published research are starting to emerge for some patient populations. One of the first of these was published in 2017 by Ischaki et al. and is specific to patients with acute hypoxemic respiratory failure (AHRF).
Others have been published by:

  1. Ricard et al. 2019 (pre-oxygenation for intubation outside the operating room) 
  2. d’Espiney et al 2020 (hypercapnia) 
  3. Pantazopoulos et al. 2020 (COPD with Hypercapnic respiratory failure) 
  4. Raoof et al. 2020 (COVID-19)