At an international health conference this week, scientists with the University of Washington and Microsoft Research will virtually present new technology that allows medical providers to remotely check a patient’s pulse and heart rate.

The tool uses the camera on a smartphone or computer to capture video collected of a person’s face. That video is analyzed to measure changes in the light reflected by a patient’s skin, which correlates to changes in blood volume and motion that are caused by blood circulation.

The UW and Microsoft researchers used machine learning and three datasets of videos and health stats to train its system. And as has been the case with various image and video-related machine learning projects, the technology performed less accurately among people of different races.

In this case, the challenge is that lighter skin is more reflective, while darker skin absorbs more light, and the tool needs to perceive subtle changes in the reflections.

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Published by Lisa Stiffler on April 6, 2021