As hospitals scramble to find rooms for COVID-19 patients, a new tool at university hospitals may soon save space, allowing the sick to stay home instead.

“And we used to not be able to send them home because we couldn’t do it safely. We didn’t have a way to measure their blood oxygen level. But now we do,” critical care physician Dr. Peter Pronovost said.

It’s called the “masimo safetynet,” and allows hospitals to track their patient’s vitals from afar.

All they do is tape the device to their finger and sync it to their phone.

It’s wireless and disposable; data goes in real time to a command center.

“Basically, there’s an infrared light that shines through my fingernail and there’s a detector on the pad of my finger,” Pronovost said.

A was a big relief for Alyssa Drosdak, a medical resident, who recently contracted coronavirus, but worried about fighting it at home alone.

“Every day at about 9 a.m. and then 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. They would call me. It was nurses as I understood at the UH Health Care Facility, they were monitoring me,” COVID-19 patient and Dr. Alyssa Drosdak said.

“So, I was constantly being reassured that I had people monitoring my vitals and watching over me,” Drosdak said.

The safetynet recently gained FDA approval and is free for patients.

While doctors say the timing couldn’t be better.

“And now we have requests all around the globe to say can you share this with us? There will be long term benefits that come out of this for sure,” Pronovost said.