Data from pulse oximeters can really impact patient care, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:04 — 1.5MB)

Subscribe: RSS

If you are a person with darker skin should you be worried about the levels of oxygen in your blood a pulse oximeter is giving? Critical care expert Rohan Mathur at Johns Hopkins says past studies looking at this issue suggested the devices reported higher levels of oxygen in the blood of people with darker skin than were actually measured.

Mathur: There were some findings that were coming out, people were looking back at data they had collected from these patients and found that if you compared the measurement from those pulse oximeters and compared it to the findings from a blood measurement, to direct measurement and more accurate measurement of oxygen status we found that maybe we were saying that the oxygen was higher than it actually was in patients with darker skin. So it was controversial because we make decisions based on that. It decides how much oxygen we're giving people, sometimes it decides whether a breathing tube goes in or not.               :30

Now controversy has arisen based on an FDA funded study showing that in people with darker skin, the devices report lower blood levels of oxygen than are actually present. Mathur says definition of these values is needed for best clinical care.  At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.