What Pulse Oximetry Can Teach Us About Inclusive Innovation

For most people, innovation in healthcare means new drugs, breakthrough therapies, or advanced technologies. Rarely do we think about the medical devices that quietly support patient care every day.

One such device is the pulse oximeter. Small, noninvasive, and found in nearly every hospital, it measures oxygen saturation in the blood and helps clinicians assess respiratory status. During the COVID-19 pandemic, pulse oximetry became a household term as patients and providers alike relied on oxygen saturation measurements to make important healthcare decisions.

Yet the pandemic also brought renewed attention to an important question: Do our medical technologies perform equally well for everyone?

Research published over the last several years suggested that pulse oximeter performance may vary across different skin pigmentations. The findings sparked discussions among clinicians, researchers, manufacturers, regulators, and standards organizations worldwide. While the technology remains an essential and valuable clinical tool, the conversation highlighted an important reality: medical innovation is not finished when a product reaches the market.

Instead, innovation must be an ongoing process of learning, evaluation, and improvement.

As someone who works in the field of patient monitoring, I have seen firsthand how much effort is now being invested in understanding these differences and strengthening validation practices. Across the industry, researchers are expanding clinical studies, manufacturers are evaluating testing methodologies, and regulators are updating recommendations to ensure medical devices are assessed across more diverse patient populations.

What I find most encouraging is that this discussion has moved beyond pulse oximetry itself. It has become part of a broader conversation about health equity and inclusive innovation. Questions that once may have seemed secondary—Who participated in clinical studies? How representative were the test populations? Are we measuring performance consistently across demographic groups?—are now becoming central to product development and regulatory review.

This is exactly how healthcare innovation should work. Science evolves. New evidence emerges. Assumptions are challenged. And ultimately, patients benefit.

Pulse oximetry is still one of the most important monitoring tools used in healthcare today. But perhaps its greatest contribution in recent years has been reminding us that innovation is not only about creating new technologies. It is also about continuously improving existing ones and ensuring they serve the diverse populations that depend on them.

The future of healthcare will require more than innovation alone. It will require innovation that is inclusive, evidence-based, and designed with every patient in mind.