Project Description: 

The COVID-19 pandemic brought respiratory health to the forefront of the medical field with almost 643 million cases worldwide and 5% of people having severe cases. While social epidemiology tells us that people of minority groups are disproportionately affected by pandemic diseases, patients of darker skin tones may have mistakenly been given clean bills of health and wrongly dismissed from hospitals due to an engineering failure rather than an institutional one. The standard clinical finger pulse oximeter is an essential device for patient care, especially for treatment planning in respiratory settings. However, the discrepancy that pulse oximeters have with respect to melanin concentration in different skin tones is alarming as patients with higher concentrations of melanin are three times more likely to have inflated O2 measurements that can negatively affect their ability to get the proper care. The gold standard for obtaining oxygen saturation values is through arterial blood gas, but this method takes 15 minutes and costs up to $200. Thus, we have devised a device that aims to quickly and reliably measure oxygen saturation with more accuracy than current oximeter technologies, regardless of a patient’s skin tone. Our design eliminates melanin as a variable and focuses on measuring oxygen saturation at the sublingual artery and pockets. This location is especially vascular and with no melanin, it is an optimal location to obtain oxygen saturation quickly, taking about the same time as a standard pulse oximeter. The device has an ergonomic one size fits all design that can provide clinicians with real-time O2 values allowing them to make informed treatment plans for their patients. Future steps for this device include further testing with comparisons to arterial blood gasses to ensure accuracy. We are excited to present our redesigned pulse oximeter that provides a low-cost solution to this engineering failure.