Here's an article that should come as no surprise to any of us. A lot of medical imaging devices are currently at risk because their underlying operating system has become obsolete. That OS happens to be Windows 7. Like anybody else (raises hand) who runs Windows 7 there is a risk involved because Microsoft stopped full support earlier this year. The article explains what can be done which pretty much is taking common sense measures. I came to an interesting conclusion after reading this. Apparently Windows 7 is the OS of choice in this area, not Linux.
Ironic as all the above might be, I don't think moving over to Linux would make things any safer. To be sure the medical imaging devices talked about deal with personal and sensitive patient information, but none of that is critical to the operation of the healthcare provider on it's own. Running an unpatched and outdated OS can be done safely in an isolated off-line environment. This would effectively stop any predators from using the vulnerable OS to breach an entry into the primary network. Unfortunately, not many places are doing that, but still it is possible. The argument I see coming is that Linux is running the show if not running the equipment. And, of course, there are no breaches in a Linux network.
You are right about what OS is used to READ the DATA the machine puts out, as well as the CONTROL systems to run it.
They are all done using software written for Windows computers, which is logical since that is what most folks are familiar with.
But if you look at the equipment itself and what makes it tick, most of it is done using the Linux kernel and often an internal OS based on Linux.
For example: You are in the OR and they have a monitor up high showing your vitals.
The box sending the data to the monitor is running Linux, as are each of those plug-in modules, like the SPO2 on your fingertip, the module for the sensor pads on your chest, etc.
IF data is monitored at the nurses station, it is done on a Windows computer.
Any computer, whether it be Windows, MAC, or Linux can read the output from those machines.
But all the companies who write the software only do so for Windows computers, and a few MACs.
Go down to the hearing center and you'll usually see most hearing centers are using MACs for your hearing test.
The reason here is the software company with the best hearing testing software was written for MACs.
Heck, I wouldn't doubt a lot of hospitals and medical centers are still using Windows XP with the old HP hardware.
They are not usually on-line except direct to the nurses station, and from there possibly onto the hospitals LAN.
I just looked it up 32% of hospitals still have a few Windows XP computers for older equipment.
They could not upgrade to Windows 7 or 10 due to no legacy software available for those machines.
Nevertheless, the hospitals main equipment was all HIPAA compliant.
Also almost all hospitals run on a mainframe computer, and you have to go through the mainframe to connect to the outside world to prevent security breaches.
HP makes a lot of equipment for hospitals, and I know I read somewhere that if it has a brain, it is most likely powered by Linux. Micro$oft does not make a kernel compatible with most medical equipment operational needs.
It seems like the ultimate irony that hospitals would need Windows to run their so called Linux equipment.
Either way there seems to be a need for better IT services.
If you just look at all UT Hospital (and college) have in the way of computer systems, you just might choke.
Besides having their own supercomputer for the research labs over at ORNL, they have four different mainframe systems, and can use nearly any portable, laptop, or desktop OS out there for input and output.
The computers in use in various departments depends primarily on which software package provides the best and most complete amount of information.
They also have several mini-mainframes for dedicated purposes using any number of operating systems.
"To say we are dominantly Unix or Linux or any other OS would be misleading, we use them all."
"It doesn't matter what internal system is used to make the multitude of equipment in use function, as long as the output is up to standard medical data practices, and we strive for higher than standard in all cases."
I still can't get over all the tiny little boxes that replaced the computers at my doctors office.
They don't even have their own server there anymore. Each computer is connected to the Parent Medical Groups mainframe computer now. Which is a change since my last visit out there where they still had a small server. Everything is now handled on-line ONLY, even patient appointments.
The way all these companies are linking together and rely on on-line services. What's going to happen if they get hit with an EMT? Everyone will be without a functioning system, hi hi.
Heck, even grocery store cashiers have no idea how to total up the order on a brown paper bag or make change anymore.
There was a time when doctors were independent contractors of a sort and they were effectively leasing space in the hospitals they were affiliated with. Today most doctors are employed by the hospital. Even if they are independent they must use the hospital provided offices and equipment, such as computers. This is all an effort to make one's medical information portable. Wouldn't it be wonderful if and when you came to visit your brother here in MO the local hospitals would have total access to all your medical records? Some folks would say, no, it's not wonderful. It's a privacy risk. Well, I'm big on standardization. I think my records should be on a common system accessible by anybody with the authority to do it. If the doc wants to do blood tests in his office, fine. He can buy the machine and get instant results. But he better be hooked up to that network too. LOL
When money is no object you can have computers that run anything from anywhere. I know about those things. It's going to be common too when quantum computers get fully established. You will have the equivalent of an ORNL lab in your office and be complaining it doesn't do enough quick enough. LOL
Actually, I think most hospitals are on-line with a central database now.
And nearly every doctors office is part of a larger group that is also linked with the hospitals, and possibly their databases as well. I have no problem with this because the data is not stored under a name. As far as I know, it never was, merely a customer code number. Even back when my late wife did medical transcription for all those years, she never knew the persons name she was doing the data entry for. However, after she was done, her work did go to the charting room, and in that room they associated the code number with the client name in order to get it on the proper charts. But the people working in that department did not see the report, only the header information. The only people who saw the entire document was when it came out of the printer and was placed on the patient chart, and I doubt they had time to read anything since they were usually understaffed as it was.
Today, at most places, nearly everything is digitized, and only the summary report goes on the charts. I know this because I bring papers with me to go in their charts, and only the newest one is on the chart the next time I am there. I look at the chart when the doc leaves the room and there are notations with file numbers assigned to papers I brought previously.
One of the bright ideas to come out of the Obama administration was to make medical records standard and available anywhere in the USA. I don't think the program has complete yet, but there has been great movement in that direction. The first year I came down here to O'Fallon each of the three doctors I was seeing had their own computerized record keeping system. They all work for the same hospital and now must coordinate with the hospital even if they maintain their own equipment in their office. Personally I'd think it would be a lot easier to let the hospital IT department handle it all, but people tend to become intimate with their work computers. Thus there is a reluctance to change anything.
Wife needed to get a report from a surgery she had done in Illinois about 20 years ago. It took a bit of paperwork, just to get them to agree to look for it. We happened to be visiting relatives up there and went directly to the hospital to pick up the medical files. When we got there they said they only keep them (on CD) for 15 years. We missed it by a few. I don't know what they do to keep a CD from deteriorating over 15 years, but apparently it's possible.
My late wife needed some record of something, and they told her they destroyed the old reel to reel tapes years ago.
If stored in vacuum sealed cabinets, CDs will probably last forever. But the technology to read them will be long gone.
Humidity causes the foil to corrode, and that is what happened to a lot of my old CDs. Ironic since my office is usually fairly dry, well below the normal humidity for a home or office.
On sorta a different note: Folks forget about using wood boxes with all the plastic boxes out there these days.
Even in our high humidity greenhouses, in a little room in those greenhouses built of all wood, we stored all of our seeds in wooden boxes. When cousin George switched to using plastic boxes, the seeds lost their viability fast. So even he went back to using the old wooden boxes.
My dad kept all of our account cards in wooden boxes for umpteen years, then he switched to steel file drawers sized for those cards for several more years. Then guess what, when he changed the type of order forms we used, he bought wooden file cabinets sized to hold those new forms. Even after we switched to computers, most of the orders were still hand written and the copies kept in those wooden file drawers. That is until we put in terminals at each of the order taking desks when we went with Wang.
Can I brag a little about something my dad did to cut office billing costs drastically?
From my grandfathers era up until around 1970 give or take, all orders were taken on a single 5x7 card, designed for the purpose of course.
This 5x7 card got hung up on the To Be Filled order rack, along with the gift card to be attached to the order, and the delivery sticker. When the order was filled, this card was sent to the driver routing person to be scheduled for delivery. After the driver returned from making the delivery, all the cards in his box for that trip was sent to the office.
A typist typed up the bill and placed it in an envelope to be mailed to the customer, and the card went into one of the accounts receivable wooden boxes, in alphabetical order. There were twenty of these boxes lined up, half of them half the size of the first 10. On day 10, all orders still in box 20 were removed, and those from box 10 put into it. The orders removed had a new bill typed up and sent out, and a yellow ribbon stapled to the card, and it was placed in a past due box. Ten days later, they would add a blue ribbon and rebill, and ten days after that a red ribbon and send a past due notice. After that it went to the collections department.
OK - In the early 1970s, dad came up with a new type of multi-part order form.
The back cardstock card was the permanent record card, and it's lower half was the delivery label.
The front original copy was folded up at the bottom to hold the gift card that got put on the order.
The center pink copy is what was used to fill the order and it got sent to the routing counter.
The front original copy was separated from the folded up part and sent to billing who simply placed that copy in the envelope to mail, along with the return envelope. No more typing up the orders on a statement.
After the driver returned from making his deliveries, the pink copy went to the office to be matched with the order to be billed, we didn't bill until we knew the order was delivered. Then it was just piled up in a box for a month and got thrown away. The cardstock was treated in the same fashion as mentioned above under grandpas way of doing things.
We always hand wrote and signed the gift cards all the way up until we went with Wang and were totally automated.
I've mentioned this somewhere else a long time ago; my very first official job was as a "dummy boy" in an envelope company. My job was to make sample envelopes, dummies, for the sales people to show potential customers. I also did the mail run from the office to various points in the factory and a few other things. Underneath the office level was a storage area for paper stock used to make the envelopes and for business related paperwork. There was an entire wall of this building, in excess of 50 ft long, filled with wooden file cabinets. I'm guessing every order ever processed by this company was in those file cabinets somewhere. LOL
The office had a dozen or so outside sales people in a bull pen type arrangement. I don't think cubicals were invented yet. Along the outer walls were the business offices. Three of the corner offices were for the owners and accountant to occupy. The accountant rated right up there with the president apparently. Anyway, there were billing people and purchase agents and inside sales and a whole bunch of sundry offices. Mine was right in the middle of one wall centrally located. That was because the refrigerator was located in my room and it had to be convenient for everybody to access.
I only worked for the envelope company one year, and then got a job at Motorola for 6 cents and hour more. I didn't know a lot about computers in those days because they weren't that popular in offices. But, I did know that one computer running Windows XP could replace almost all the order processing people. Another would do away with the accountant and tie all the salesmen together. I suppose if the president was too busy to keep track of the finances he could have an administrative assistant with a computer. but that's it. Three computers could have replaced the jobs of twelve people easily.
Nobody in that office was like your grandpa. They were not interested in modernization nor efficiency. However, the owner/president was very much into making his people comfortable and secure in their job. A few times a year they would shut down production and have a fish fry out on the shipping docks. Anybody with personal financial problems was called into the president's office to talk things over. Legend has it that more than a few interest free loans were made. It was an amazing place to work.
In one way I was fortunate to learn all the ins and outs of business being raised in a business where 90% of our inventory was perishable goods. Just learning what to buy when and how much to buy at a time was a major challenge that required not only a lot of knowledge about the industry, but keeping pace with sale trends as well.
And as odd as this may seem, we had to keep close ties with the garment industry as well.
We had to know a year or two ahead what colors they were going to be introducing down the road, so we could raise the flowers for those color trends, mainly in the wedding flowers arena.
The years when blues were dominant were the hardest years of all, because no two shades of blue compliment each other, in fact, they usually clash horribly.
The neat thing about coming into the computer age, as far as making sideline money from it, and also my various office supply machines I manufactured.
The money to pay for most of my computer equipment came from using that equipment to make other smaller businesses look larger, and to handle things like billing and such for a few of them. A new dentist in town was not only one of my first clients, but he also became my biggest client as well, since he joined a group and I got all their work through him.
And I did all this on an Apple II+ with an Integral Data Systems printer. That 9-pin printer cost me over 1,600 dollars to buy too. It was commercial quality with a Ford Aerospace Engine, which is what they called the guts in this thing. It really was a workhorse! For each company I sent out bills for, I had their letterhead on tractor-drive paper, and matching envelopes and return envelopes. With over 14 clients, the paper and envelopes alone took up a lot of storage space, hi hi. Plus I was doing all the work for at the florist also as far as inventory and pricing goes, billing was still handled by the existing gals until we got the Lisa system, then they did it on that, so nobody lost a job over it.
I keep reading about how Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality are going to replace a lot of people in the workforce. Yesterday I ran across an article about driverless semis being tested on Arizona highways. Some company invented a system that is supposedly superior to anything being used currently. It can "see" 1500 feet down the road, for example, at night under any weather conditions. For now there is a driver sitting in the cockpit just in case. They figure it will be all perfected by next year and the humans won't be necessary. There apparently are various classes of semi drivers and they cited three of them wherein 100,000 drivers will be affected. The only thing that needs to be ironed out yet is the ability to faithfully follow a police officer's directions when there is a situation requiring one on the highway.
The article only mentioned on the road travel. They never mentioned anything about what happens at the loading docks in the inner city. There's probably a reason for that omission.
So far autonomous vehicles cannot maneuver city streets very well.
They make it look like they can, but unfortunately the systems are not in place to do so.
As far as semis go, they only follow the highway, and must have a stopping area off an exit where a driver can take over.
Perhaps a gated parking area, like where they stop to unhitch the triple trailers so only a single trailer is moved through town at a time.
In order for an autonomous vehicle to work it requires both the GPS and the Maps to be accurate.
GPS is fairly good, and sensors keep the vehicle aligned with the road markings, but the Maps leave much to be desired.
Not only are Maps not updated frequently enough, in many cases they are inaccurate as well.
But the biggest problem facing autonomous vehicles are all the illegal lane markings on our roads.
Thru lanes that suddenly end.
Passing lanes that suddenly become left turn lanes.
Thru lanes that suddenly become right turn lanes.
Illegal merge signs that you have to break the law to follow.
And then there is the issue with illogical speed limit signs that no one follows.
An autonomous vehicle would obey the posted speed limit, and also, if no speed limit was posted at all, it would follow the law for the area for the speed limit on unposted roads, which is usually 25 mph, some areas only 20 mph.
This can be dangerous on a 45 mph highway when an autonomous vehicle pulls out and does only 20 mph to comply with the law of unsigned roadways. GPS information could override this if it knows what the speed for that section of roadway is.
But what about work zones, where the signs change as the workers move on down the road?
Until we have PROPER lane markings on the roads, and instant road condition updates for every inch of highway and byway, I don't see how autonomous vehicles can be used safely.
But I guess our poly-tick-ians will get enough payola kickbacks to make them legal, just like they did the hazardous front wheel drive cars, which should have never been allowed on public roads anywhere.
By the way, who does a cop write a ticket to if there is no driver?
Like the autonomous car that sits at a red light forever because the light is broken?
I got a kick out of one of them newer cars that can self-parallel park.
It still had a driver who pushed the park button.
But the car did so blocking a fire hydrant. The sensors never mentioned it could not park there, hi hi.
So I guess it could not read the no parking sign, hi hi.
Going off track here for a second, and I know I mentioned this before.
When the Interstate Highway System was first designed, it was supposed to have a cargo lane between the driving lanes, in what we call the median. This was either to be rail or monorail, but paid for by the shipping industry, which is why it fell through. A LOT of changes were made to the Interstate Highway Plans in the few years I worked in Highways & Planning. Also, many other changes came later after I was long gone from that job. Most of today's Interstate Highway system is not at all like the original designs that were approved. And to cut corners, instead of two sets of pillars holding up bridges, they chose only one in the center where the rail was supposed to go. Although doing it the latter way allowed for two more driving lanes, all interstates were originally designed for 8 lanes, plus the center cargo lanes.
I don't have any details about the automatic semi's I mentioned, but they will be driven by AI and AR capable systems. GPS will be part of the navigation, but real time road conditions only need a satellite image and not digital maps that are outdated. You might be surprised at what AI can do these days.
The interstate system was built for the military. Fortunately they never had to use it for it's intended purpose. Then, the military changed as did the rest of the world. I like the idea of cargo lanes, but I think there now are better ways to transport troops and cargo in 2020 compared to 1950.
I do know a lot of changes were made to the Interstate System before I went to work in Highways & Planning.
But I saw hundreds of changes in my short time there too.
One of the things most talked about regarding the cargo transport issue was how fast technology was changing.
There would always be semi trucks on the road, that would be unavoidable. But for rapid products transfer, they actually envisioned more railroads with piggyback trailer trains, not less railroads.
Plus the envisioned more factories being localized, not them getting further away or overseas.
When I look back at those years, it is like nearly the opposite of what they envisioned is what has happened.
When I worked in Systems Engineering, the outlook for the future was more and more things would become standardized to help lower the cost of manufacturing and end consumer prices. Many things did become standardized, but nothing that affects commercial products or consumer prices. And what things were standardized has drifted away from it slowly over the years. Like cars, body styles would change, but what makes the car go would be close to the same in all cars. Parts for any make or model of drive train would be interchangeable. That never happened, hi hi.
I remember a couple of the engineers talking about making the main part of a toaster the same on all brands, and only the cases different. But each company has their own design for the working parts also. Rather than simply making improvements to the existing design used by all. Never happened!
Well, there is one industry where there is a lot of standardization, and that is the computer industry.
Although most of the internal parts are not interchangeable. Only a couple of companies dictate how computers will work. But all companies must make their peripheral devices work on the standard plugs, such as USB and now USB3, etc.
Improvements are made over the years, and some methods become obsolete, nevertheless, for the most part, the computer industry has held standardized things across the industry now longer than any other company.
The fundamental components of all computers must be the same. In the commercial end of the business where inter connectivity is a common everyday activity, the link needs to be standard across all platforms. But that USB cable is the only part that is standard. Even it's connector comes in multiple sizes and some have more wires connected than others. The protocol is standard, but not much else. I'm thinking about all the trouble the EFI people went through to make it a standard. Well the spec is, but nothing else seems to comply. As long as there is competition to deal with, things will never be universally standardized.
Speaking of Medical Equipment.
I'm on oxygen and have a big unit down at the house.
My son knew I needed one up in my office, but couldn't afford one.
He travels for business, not real far usually, but was over in Indiana where they auction off new medical equipment, but only the kind you don't have to have a prescription to get.
They had about a dozen, brand new, unused, small oxygen concentrators for sale.
He looked them up on-line using his cell phone and saw they sold for anywhere from 275 to 450 dollars for that make and model. The bidding for them ranged from 80 to 125 bucks, he ended up bidding 100 bucks and grabbed a new unopened box and had it shipped to me.
I could tell the box had never been opened, because the lock tabs didn't have a dent, bend, or mark on them, and still had the original tape.
The item seemed to work OK, but wasn't bringing my O2 up. I checked everything I could on it, and it looks OK.
I put about 4 hours on it using it for a little bit every morning when I got up to my office.
It does blow out air, but when the guy who services my rental unit was here, I asked if he had a purity meter. He went out and brought one in and checked the rental machine. It was perfect, then he came up to my office and check the one up here. Flowrate was about 1/4th of what it should be and O2 read less than 12% over room air on his meter.
He said it is probably a hose come off inside the unit. But they only work on the brands they sell.
The booklet inside doesn't show how to open the case, although I tried by taking out a few screws, hi hi.
The booklet says it has a one year warranty. So yesterday I called three places that sell them, and they say unless it came directly from them, they don't take them back for replacement or for repair, we don't repair them, just throw them away.
One place I talked to said warranties on imported goods are a joke. It costs more to ship them overseas and back than the units usually cost, and their is sometimes a six month turnaround time. Just not worth it.
He also said if you look on places like Alibaba you can see what they cost if you buy 25 of them or more. So having to toss one or two of them in the trash really doesn't hurt our bottom line.
I did look them up, and the minimum amount I saw one could buy to get any kind of break at all was 10 units at 150 bucks each, or 20 units and 135 each, it wasn't until you got up to 50 units that I saw anyone under 100 bucks.
But I guess a company that sells them, if they only bought 10 at 150 bucks each, and sold them for 350 bucks each, they could afford to toss one in the trash now and then.
But as far as the warranty goes, it is meaningless.
I'm pretty sure the only problem is a loose hose or a cracked connector tube.
Almost all O2 concentrators, if you kink the hose for a few seconds then release it will have a short but stronger puff of air. This one does not. Plus the rear air filter housing wiggles when you try to check the filter, seems it should be solid mounted.
I guess we know why that O2 concentrator was at the auction house. It probably was on a pallet that fell off the loading dock of the boat that brought them over.
It would seem likely that you can get information about how to open and repair the unit. There are manuals for such purposes, but the chances of you finding one written in English are slim. Then again, all you need are some pictures to tell you how to open it.
I've heard that story before where I was told it's cheaper to trash the item than to fix it. I bought a $600 mirrored medicine cabinet that arrived in pieces, literally. Called the distributor (not the manufacturer) and he told us to take pictures. He would ship a new one right away but did not want the old one back. This involved a shipper in Iowa and the Kohler factory in Wisconsin.
Well I did manage to take it apart, found the cracked tube and another broken off part inside.
I have it working now, unfortunately, I discovered that even though it is working, they are not designed for what they appear to be designed for.
Yes they put out 90% oxygen as a purity level at 1 lpm but only 70% at 2 lpm, 50% at 3 lpm, 30% at 4 lpm.
In other words, not enough to bring the O2 level up more than 1 to 2% if that of a person with COPD or Emphysema.
This is why you can get them without a prescription.
Their main use is to help you study better, and a whole list of other things.
Basically, they do no more than walking in a forest, sitting on a beach, or standing by a waterfall.
They will make you feel revived, without altering your O2 by more than a point.
But you couldn't tell that by reading the ads for these things.
Using it with the Anion Mode turned on will help improve the cilia function, this much I can notice about using it.
But my O2 only comes up one point on the low 1 lpm setting, goes back down if I turn it up to 2 lpm.
I should have realized this from the git go, since I had been reading about them before my son found this one.
Medical grade units put out 95% oxygen on the 2 lpm setting, a little more on 1 lpm, a little less on 3 lpm but only about 2% less.
Which is why the charts show an increase in inspired O2 at each lpm level.
Amount inspired at 1 lpm is 24%, at 2 lpm 28%, at 3 lpm 30% on medical grade.
On the non-prescription home units, the numbers are no where near that, and run in the opposite direction.
At 1 lpm 14%, at 2 lpm 10%, at 3 lpm 7%, and at 4 lpm only 3%.
I don't know why having 5% more O2 makes such a big difference, but according to the charts, it does.
When I was doing my bathroom, although the medicine cabinet was OK, one of the three long lights had broken mirrors.
The company did the same thing with me, told me to send them a picture.
They sent me a light box, but the only thing in it was THREE new mirrors.
The reason they sent three is because my order showed I bought 3 light units, and the beveling on the new mirrors they sent me were slightly different. Ironically, the new mirrors bevel matched the medicine cabinet closer than the original mirrors. So I used all three of the new ones and set the original two mirrors aside just in case.
On small items, I'm often asked to send only a piece of it back, to prove it is broken.
Usually it is a part that would render the unit inoperable and you cannot get a replacement part.
The part will usually fit in an envelope too! But other times, they just replace it without a return.
I do know it costs quite a bit to handle a return and match it up with the customer.
Back when I was packaging my AZ-NO3 product with 4 cartons to a case which totals 48 bottles.
I would send the distributor a free case, if he pays the shipping, to cover samples, returns, and shrinkage.
When I blend an order, I usually have 2 or 3 extra bottles from each batch. Or more precisely 50 bottles per batch.
Rather than dump those couple of bottles down the drain, I keep them and add them to the next order.
Over time, I end up with a full case to send to them for free. My only cost is the bottles, caps, paperwork, cartons, and the overwrap case, a little sealing tape and a delivery sticker. The product would have just gone to waste if I didn't go ahead and put it in bottles.
Basically, I gave them one free case for every 48 cases they ordered, which was like every 4th order.
Now that sales have dropped, and I package 2 cartons per case, or 24 bottles, I don't really have the surplus left over that I used to. There is often not enough left in the vat to fill one bottle much less two bottles due to the smaller order volume, and a little more loss in the new bottling system's tubing and pumps.
I learned something new today about O2 concentraters. I didn't realize there were medical grade machines vs non-prescription grade machines. Mom got hers from the hospice people and it kept her O2 readings above 95%. Her COPD was related to asthma so that might have made it easier to maintain a safe level. Going by your description the machine you have is not only useless but also could be dangerous and life threatening to somebody who doesn't understand what it really does, or does not do in your case.
Apparently "free" samples of a product are a normal way of doing business. Doctors get drugs free all the time, for example. I used to buy all my spices and herbs mail order from a place up in Wisconsin. When I first started they would send my order plus a jar of something I did not order. It was a free gift just to show me what else they have, I suppose. I liked that idea and kept doing business with them for years. They are still in business and still do mail orders but they stopped sending free samples. They never explained why they did it in the first place, but now that they don't I'm disappointed. LOL I buy my herbs elsewhere unless I want mass quantities.
All of the ones you can buy without a prescription clearly states they only produce 90% purity at 1 lpm.
Some don't tell you it is only 70% at 2 lpm, and less as you increase the lpm.
Many times a prescription is only required to buy something from certain places because they deal with insurance companies, medicare, etc.
Take a bag of saline as an example: You cannot buy it from a pharmacy without a script. They do this so they can charge more and bill it to insurance companies.
Go down another aisle and you can buy OTC saline under various labels, all medical grade pure, and without a script.
I think it is about the same with oxygen concentrators. You can't buy one over 90% without a prescription, but 90 and under you can, (even if they claim it is 93%).
That being said, you can still find companies selling medical grade without a prescription, but the manufacturer will not warranty them if bought through certain places.
My insurance company should pay the rental on a small one for my office, since the big ones are not actually portable. Not meaning the battery powered portables here. But plug in portables you set on a desk.
Because my script is currently for use overnight, and my doctor quit the practice, and my specialist don't want to see me for another year. I'm sorta between a rock and a hard place right now. My morning O2 after I'm off the oxygen does drop below 86 until I do my Nebulizer treatment, which I now do four times a day. And with pursed lip breathing I can keep my O2 up around 94 to 96 during the day in my office, if I do not do anything considered exertion, then it drops like a rock real quick.
I'm usually around 91 after I walk up to the garage, feed the outside birds, then sit down at my desk.
This little home use model does get me up to 94 if I combine it with pursed lip breathing, which by itself, the pursed lip breathing could also, just not as quick.
