Annually, ∼300,000 neonates are admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in the U.S., mostly due to respiratory distress. After a successful medical treatment in the NICU, earlier discharge to a stable home life could improve the chance of survival for neonates. However, the outpatient management of babies with fragile respiratory status is challenging in the absence of reliable remote monitoring devices suitable for use at home. Due to the small form factor and ease of use, contemporary home monitoring devices deploy sensors measuring SpO2, the saturation of hemoglobin bound to oxygen. Nevertheless, accurate assessment of oxygenation is complicated and not possible with only one parameter. Therefore, in clinical practice, invasive blood gas measurements - including partial pressure of oxygen (PaO2), which is the free dissolved oxygen (not bound to hemoglobin) - are not entirely replaced with SpO2. PaO2 is an essential cardio-respiratory measurement and the direct indication of lung effectiveness. A direct noninvasive method of assessing PaO2 is PtcO2, oxygen gas that diffuses through the skin. Creating an ability to sense two respiratory parameters (PtcO2 and SpO2) with one wearable is unique and superior to the current practice of measuring only SpO2, filling an important gap in miniaturization of the transcutaneous blood gas monitors.

Inaccuracies in SpO2 measurement have come under scientific scrutiny during and after the pandemic. An active public engagement discusses the consequences on people of color. The known design flaw of SpO2 measurements must be corrected to bring justice and equity. Relying on the fact that PaO2 is the primary determinant of SaO2 in the blood and our multimodal sensor can measure the direct surrogates of these parameters, this opportunity allows us to exploit concurrent measurements of these parameters to develop a unique approach to mitigate racial bias in oxygenation measurements.