Onboard Tagging for Real-Time Quality Assessment of Photoplethysmograms Acquired by a Wireless Reflectance Pulse Oximeter

Onboard assessment of photoplethysmogram (PPG) quality could reduce unnecessary data transmission on battery-powered wireless pulse oximeters and improve the viability of the electronic patient records to which these data are stored. These algorithms show promise to increase the intelligence level of former “dumb” medical devices: devices that acquire and forward data but leave data interpretation to the clinician or host system. To this end, the authors have developed a unique onboard feature detection algorithm to assess the quality of PPGs acquired with a custom reflectance mode, wireless pulse oximeter. The algorithm uses a Bayesian hypothesis testing method to analyze four features extracted from raw and decimated PPG data in order to determine whether the original data comprise valid PPG waveforms or whether they are corrupted by motion or other environmental influences. Based on these results, the algorithm further calculates heart rate and blood oxygen saturation from a “compact representation” structure. PPG data were collected from 47 subjects to train the feature detection algorithm and to gauge their performance. A MATLAB interface was also developed to visualize the features extracted, the algorithm flow, and the decision results, where all algorithm-related parameters and decisions were ascertained on the wireless unit prior to transmission. For the data sets acquired here, the algorithm was 99% effective in identifying clean, usable PPGs versus nonsaturated data that did not demonstrate meaningful pulsatile waveshapes, PPGs corrupted by motion artifact, and data affected by signal saturation.