In November 2021 the then health secretary, Sajid Javid, appointed Margaret Whitehead, professor of public health at the University of Liverpool, to lead the review and extended its scope to include potential bias in other medical devices and also other biases, such as sex and socioeconomic status. The review focused on three areas: optical devices such as pulse oximeters, devices enabled with artificial intelligence, and polygenic risk scores in genomics. Its final report, with recommendations (box 1), was published this week.
What were the review’s key recommendations?
The review made 18 detailed recommendations, including the following, across the three areas.
Medical devices
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The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) should produce new guidance on pulse oximeters, emphasising the variable accuracy of readings in patients with darker skin tones and recommending the monitoring of trends rather …
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