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BOxy: A Cost-Effective Blood Oximeter

Authors:
Beau Hsia
Derrick Wang
Navid Shaghaghi
Zhiwen Zhang

Keywords: Blood Oxygen Meter (SpO2); Oximeter; Internet of Things (IoT); Infrared (IR);

Abstract:
In third-world countries, there are efforts that push for the increased availability of pulse oximeters for monitoring critical health conditions. Currently, it costs African hospitals $500 USD to replace their current oximeters, and $250 USD to repair small malfunctions, due to the outrageously high shipping costs for both the machine and its spare parts. There is a great need for oximeters that are cost effective, easy to maintain and repair, portable, and convenient. With the proliferation of the Internet of Things (IoT) these requirements can easily be met. However, the benefits o f I oT h ave n ot y et r eached c ritical mass in rural, isolated, or impoverished parts of the world. Therefore, even though the recent years have seen a plethora of wireless clipon fingertip pulse oximeters on the market, the cost and reliability on a Bluetooth connection with a cellphone are still considerable and sometimes prohibitive factors. At the time of this writing, simple yet reliable SPO2 sensors exist for around $2 USD yet the cheapest pulse oximeter with Bluetooth capability is around $30 USD and WiFi enabled devices are not available in the general consumer market. BOxy, is Santa Clara University’s Ethical, Pragmatic, and Intelligent Computing (EPIC) Laboratory’s effort to produce the most cost-effective Blutooth and WiFi enabled pulse oximeter using readily available and supported off-theshelf components so that communities and health workers in rural, isolated, and impoverished regions of the world can easily purchase or build and certainly repair their own pulse oximeters rather than rely on costly or uncertain products or shipping costs.

Pages: 1 to 4

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2020

Publication date: October 25, 2020

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2326-9324

ISBN: 978-1-61208-814-3

Location: Nice, France

Dates: from October 25, 2020 to October 29, 2020