Pulse Oximetry: Accuracy Bias & The Impact on Patient Care

Pulse oximeters have wide accuracy limits, as well as a documented racial bias, with inaccuracies disproportionately affecting individuals with darker skin tones. This issue became particularly evident during COVID-19, where decisions based on inaccurate oximetry readings led to misdiagnoses and treatment delays. However, current international standards (ISO) and FDA guidelines allow for a significant margin of error (up to ±4%), which can result in critical misjudgements in patient care for people with white, brown or black skin. There is a widespread lack of awareness among clinicians including in hospital, general practitioners (GPs) and other allied medical professionals about these limitations, and this knowledge gap underscores the need for targeted education and communication efforts. This webinar will highlight the technical issues associated with pulse oximeter inaccuracy, the need to amplify the issues to the clinical community and what critical changes need to be made to both policy and regulatory practice.