IP Requirements:

• Emory IP

Experience Requirements:

• Electrical Engineering

Every patient who steps into a hospital gets their vitals checked. Vitals are a set of bodily functions that are essential to triaging patients as well as treating them. They consist of Heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure and oxygen saturation. Out of all of these measures, the oxygen saturation can be the most difficult one to consistently obtain. Currently, oxygen saturation probes work by emitting infrared light beams that pass through your skin. It uses the fact that deoxygenated and oxygenated hemoglobin absorb light at different wavelengths. 

Although this technology is non-invasive and cheap, there are many circumstances where it is not accurate or reliable. For example, in patients with darker skin tones the technology is often unreliable. Similarly in critically ill patients with poor circulation the device may not pick up a signal. Finally, the technology has not been tested for accuracy at very low oxygen saturations <80%. If the oxygen saturation is thought to be unreliable and there is need to know the patient’s oxygen status urgently, then a bedside arterial puncture can be done, however, this can be painful and carries some risk of bleeding. 

I would like to propose a new device that will more directly and accurately relay information about oxygen saturation even in extreme cases of critical illness.