start patients on oxygen

[GoodTaste]

The expression "start patients on oxygen" sounds missing something to me. Normally I think it goes like "start giving patients oxygen" or "support patients with oxygen."

Is the expression "start patients on oxygen" okay in English? (It seems possible that it is an excellent expression in English. I am not very sure.

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This type of intensive outreach effort is important for two reasons. First, several people in our community have had cases of “happy hypoxemia,” with little awareness that they had a serious respiratory disease. Waiting for patients to seek care only when symptoms become intolerable reduces the utility of most interventions. By detecting hypoxemia sooner, we can start patients on oxygen and, in some cases, keep them at home.

Source: New England Journal of Medicine July 2, 2020
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.105...=featured_home

 

[tedmc]

start patient on oxygen
start patient on a course of antibiotics
start patient on physiotherapy
start patient on IV drip

I think the above are common in hospitals.

 

[Skrej]

start patient on oxygen
start patient on a course of antibiotics okay, but you can optionally omit 'a course of'. You'll often hear the name of the drug used - 'start him on penicillin/albuterol/beta blockers/hydrocortisone'
start patient on physiotherapy
start patient on an IV drip I think 'an' is required here, but 'drip' is optional.

Yes, it's fine. As tedmc mentioned, the expression 'start someone on X' is frequently used in the context of medical treatments.