In an effort to leave no stone unturned in the search for evidence of systemic racism, these intrepid U of M medical researchers have recently discovered a startling culprit: the pulse oximeter.
“This shows that systemic racism is built into the technology we use and affects health-care outcomes for minorities,” Rush says. “Not only is our medical technology giving us biased and incorrect information, but clinicians are also using that inaccurate information to make clinical decisions that cause harm.”
To be really accurate, maybe the studies need to set up a Race Classification Board first. There must be some retired bureaucrats from South Africa who could be tapped to help out with that.
So they’re saying there isn’t a single human race but several different species who need different medical care.
I think a better description is that the machines need a color or race switch. Heaven help the nurse who guesses wrong.
They’re devices so can’t be inherently racist. Rather than bitch about racism, perhaps start figuring a way to make it right. Most oximeters are made in an asian country afterall.
Figure out how much they’re wrong for what skin tones. Set up a reference table. Get the information out to the hospitals and oximeter manufacturers.
Pulse oximeters were developed in the 1970s and mostly tested on healthy white male patients, Rush says.
Citation, please. Show us the test data.
Now, I have no citations myself. But I am going to guess, after having worked with and known engineers throughout my career, that the designers did test and account for skin tone, skin thickness and texture, fingernail opacity, and so on. I suspect that the oximeter documentation even has guidelines on how to mentally do some math to adjust the reading based on the patient’s various variables.
Rather than systemic racism, I’m more inclined to believe that problems with these devices are due to the classic problem with any ubiquitous high tech device: failure to RTFM.
Just for giggles, I downloaded the manual for a clinical grade machine. While the manual for the Masimo Rad-97 Pulse Oximeter does not contain the sort of guidelines I thought might exist for skin tone and other variables, it does have multiple footnotes commenting on the testing of its features and what it measures. One such footnote:
The Masimo rainbow SET technology with Masimo sensors has been validated for no motion accuracy in human blood studies on healthy adult male and female volunteers with light to
dark skin pigmentation in induced hypoxia studies in the range of 70%-100% SpO2 against a
laboratory CO-Oximeter and ECG monitor.
There are similar notes for how pressure and pulse detection were tested.
The manual also notes that the machine has ranges of accuracy – it’s not 100% accurate and that’s known and admitted. The manual documents the typical accuracy range.
We knew this already, but the authors of the systemic justice social racism or whatever the hell they’re calling it article are full of shit.
The authors are free to develop a pulse oximeter for use on dark skinned people.
Or maybe they should check with India. Perhaps they have one, or know how to use it on dark skinned people.
https://www.masimo.com/siteassets/us/documents/pdf/clinical-evidence/set/13_sta_22am_abstract_44_barker765.pdf
So rather than do a random uncontrolled study like the “Finders Assuming Racism Everywhere” (FARcE for short) the manufacture took pairs, and subjected them to the same hypoxia protocol, and then tested them with both the identified SpO2 meter and a arterial blood gas sample, and found no statistical difference.
I assume FARcE is just trying to blame the manufacturers for the errors in treatment by the doctors.
Always scream racism to up the funding levels
Well let’s just go back to the transcutaneous method where the skin was heated and left little burn marks and had to be moved every 4 hours or just place arterial lines in everyone and draw lots of blood. That is what we used to do in premature infants and those methods are invasive and with some pretty real and awful consequences.Fortunately I guess at this point i am not permitted to work since the Supreme Court thinks the fact that my hospital employers getting government money means employees have to take experimental and novel medical therapies.
And BTW there are a lot of factors that can influence how well and reliable a pulse oximeter is and one also needs to evaluate the clinical status of a patient which can be a really difficult concept for many clinicians.
The pulse oximeter is no more and no less racist than sun lotion.
(Also, why isn’t it spelled “oxymeter”?)
they didn’t want to confuse it with Oxycontin (aka Oxy)?