Self-Proning in COVID-19

Patients with severe COVID-19 often present with profound hypoxemia. Initial recommendations for their management included early intubation, but this was not predicated on evidence. Recently, many hospitals have initiated awake or self-proning protocols early in patients' hospital courses, in an attempt to improve oxygenation and stave off intubation. Unlike the labor-intensive and risky proning procedure in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (in which patients are paralyzed, sedated, and rotated onto their stomachs), with self-proning, alert patients roll onto their stomachs or sides by themselves.

In this observational study, researchers in a New York City emergency department measured the change in oxygen saturation 5 minut…