photo by Roman Zaiets | Shutterstock
COVID-19 made pulse oximeters ubiquitous. Engineers are fixing their racial bias
During the COVID-19 pandemic, one measurement became more important than almost any other: blood oxygen saturation. It was the one concrete number that doctors could use to judge how severe a case of COVID-19 was and know whether to admit people into the hospital and provide them with supplemental oxygen. But pulse oximeters, the device most commonly used to measure blood oxygen levels, don’t work as well for patients of color.
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