The NPR news reported our work in pulse oximeter and the article together with an audio could be found here: ‘When it comes to darker skin, pulse oximeters fall short‘. The article showed our opinion that the commercial devices have been shown in research to produce inaccurate results in dark-skinned people, and our lab is developing technology that would be more accurate, regardless of skin tone.

Our pulse oximetry work that aims to take racial bias out of oxygen readings by using a single wavelength of light that bypasses the skin is reported by Boston Globe, titled ‘A blood-oxygen detector without racial bias‘. Having completed preliminary testing, we intend to start clinical trials in a couple of months to confirm that their prototype eliminates skin-color bias.

A prototype of the pulse oximeter

An interdisciplinary group of experts came together at Brown University for the second in a series of Home Health Technologies in 2032 meetings, namely Workshop 2: Healthcare Technologies in the Living Environment, to explore how emerging technologies might better support improved health and well-being without ever leaving home. Over the course of a day and a half in early June, working groups made of up varying stakeholders identified how in-home tech could drive paradigm shifts in healthcare, paying particular attention to solutions that would reduce the load on healthcare systems, address accessibility and equity for all populations and could realistically be translated into the home itself within ten years.

For more details about the event, please visit: https://engineering.brown.edu/news/2022-06-14/hht-32-part-2

Pulse oximeters can overestimate blood oxygen in people with dark skin. Rutendo Jakachira, a PhD student in our lab, aims to use a single wavelength of light to bypass the skin. Recently her work got cited in an article in Politico titled ‘Flawed oxygen readings may be behind Covid-19’s toll on people of color’.