BOLD, a blood-gas and oximetry linked dataset

Pulse oximeters measure peripheral arterial oxygen saturation (SpO2)
noninvasively, while the gold standard involves arterial blood gas measurement
(SaO2). There are known racial and ethnic disparities in their performance.
BOLD is a new comprehensive dataset that aims to underscore the importance of
addressing biases in pulse oximetry accuracy, particularly affecting people
with darker skin tones. The dataset was created by harmonizing three
Electronic Health Record databases (MIMIC-III, MIMIC-IV, eICU-CRD) comprising
Intensive Care Unit stays. Paired SpO2 and SaO2 measurements were time-aligned
and combined with various other clinical parameters to provide a detailed
picture of each patient. It includes 49,099 such paired measurements within a
5-minute window, with oxygen saturation levels between 70-100%. Significantly,
about 25% of the data represents minority racial and ethnic groups, a
proportion seldom achieved in previous studies. The code scripts have been
made publicly available to facilitate replication.We hope that BOLD is poised
to be a valuable resource for health equity studies, that can be used to
develop pulse oximetry debiasing algorithms.