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For most patients, a pulse oximeter is a familiar gadget from visits to the doctor’s workplace. Placed on a finger or a patient’s ear lobe, pulse oximeters are an easy approach to shortly get a measure of someone’s oxygen saturation (SpO2), which should generally be above ninety %. But the machine may be contributing to disparities in care based mostly on a patient’s race. For decades, it’s been identified that skin pigmentation and melanin can have an effect on a pulse oximeter’s skill to accurately measure oxygen saturation. A brand new research, led by investigators at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), finds evidence that those inaccuracies may also be related to disparities in care. Researchers discovered that, in comparison with white patients, Black, Hispanic and Asian patients treated within the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) had larger discrepancies between SpO2 levels detected using pulse oximeters versus ranges detected in blood samples and obtained less supplemental oxygen than white patients. Results are published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
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