The state Department of Health wants to require hospitals to buy carbon monoxide screening equipment as part of a campaign to prevent deaths from the toxic and odorless gas.

The effort, scheduled to be announced today, comes two weeks after a woman, her boyfriend and her 14-year-old son died in their Providence home after a boiler apparently began leaking carbon monoxide.

Health Department Director David R. Gifford has proposed an amendment to hospital licensing regulations that would compel the purchase of carbon monoxide screening instruments, such as a type of a pulse oximeter that measures carbon monoxide levels in addition to the oxygen content in a patient’s blood.

That equipment is already being used at Rhode Island Hospital, where medical staff recently diagnosed 11 cases of carbon monoxide poisoning in a six-month period.

“It is a big problem and we can do something to help prevent it,” Robert R. Vanderslice, who leads the Healthy Homes campaign for the Health Department, said yesterday. “This would give an easy, non-invasive way to screen people.”

The campaign is being announced by Gifford; John P. Leyden, the state building commissioner; Richard James, of the state fire marshal’s office; Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline and Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian.

The proposed regulations would also require hospitals to report carbon monoxide poisoning diagnoses to the state. That would allow Health Department officials to contact local fire departments and make sure inspectors locate the source of a leak.

Local fire departments and building officials are also taking steps to protect against carbon monoxide poisonings, pledging to improve compliance with a state law requiring detectors.

Since 2002, Rhode Island has mandated that all homes must have at least one carbon monoxide detector before they can be sold. Legislators passed the law after a family in North Providence became ill and nearly died of carbon-monoxide poisoning.

About 480 people across the country died annually from carbon-monoxide exposure between 2002 and 2004, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The gas poisons about 1,500 people a year.

Carbon monoxide is absorbed by the red bloods cells and hinders the transport of oxygen, resulting in headaches, dizziness, nausea and potentially death, depending on the level of exposure.

bgedan@projo.com