Routinely utilized in ICUs, operating rooms, and telemetry floors, the pulse oximeter (“pulse ox”) is perhaps the single greatest monitoring advancement in the modern medical era. It relies on the fact that oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin absorb light at two different peak wavelengths. Without getting into too much detail, an algorithm is able to compare these ratios, exclude noise, and output an O2 saturation (SpO2).

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