Pulse oximeter devices routinely overestimate blood oxygen levels in darker-skinned patients—a racial bias that can trigger downstream health harms for Black individuals, compounding well beyond any ...

Scientists have long known that pulse oximeters are less accurate when used for people with dark skin tones – and now, a new report offers some insight into just how much more inaccurate these ...

Holly has a degree in Medical Biochemistry from the University of Leicester. Her scientific interests include genomics, personalized medicine, and bioethics.View full profile Holly has a degree in ...

The patient was in his 60s, an African American man with emphysema. The oximeter placed on his fingertip registered well above the 88% blood oxygen saturation level that signals an urgent risk of ...

The doctors and nurses didn’t believe Tomisa Starr was having trouble breathing. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. Two years ago, ...

Dark green nail polish, resembling the colour of Christmas trees, can lead to inaccurate readings in emergency and intensive care settings, according to a case study described by British intensive ...

Tiffany Kinyua is a psychology major with a minor in biology and she is a 2025-26 health care ethics intern at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. Views are her own.

Survey: Pulse Oximetry Sensor Oxygen Reading Troubles Plague 53% Anesthesiologists A recent survey by the International Anesthesia Research Society found frequent problems with pulse oximetry sensors, ...

Although current pulse-oximetry technology cannot detect every cardiac defect, the rate of missed CCHD diagnoses is much higher when screening is based on physical examination alone. Health-care ...

Black people in the hospital are 31.9% more likely than White patients to have pulse oximeter readings that overestimate their oxygen levels by at least 4 percentage points, according to data ...