Patent ID: 7711403

Claim:
A non-invasive method of estimating an amount of hemoglobin in a bodily fluid from the color of a perfused tissue surface of a subject using a digital camera, the method comprising: non-invasively capturing, using the digital camera, a single image of light reflected from the perfused tissue surface of the subject and at least a reference portion of a known color reference simultaneously, the single image being a single image of pixels of a plurality of colors, the single image including red, green, and blue component values for each pixel wherein the perfused tissue surface of the subject is a conjunctiva of an eyelid; obtaining from the single image, using at least one processor in communication with the digital camera, red, green, and blue tissue values associated with the red, green, and blue component values, respectively, corresponding to a portion-of-interest of the single image of the perfused tissue surface of the subject; obtaining from the single image, using the at least one processor in communication with the digital camera, red, green, and blue reference values associated with the red, green, and blue component values, respectively, corresponding to the reference portion; and calculating, using the at least one processor in communication with the digital camera, an estimated hemoglobin concentration amount as a function of the red, green, and blue tissue values and the red, green, and blue reference values.