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New PDA Listens To Your Heartbeat
Roland Piquepaille writes "CardioNet Inc., a company based in San Diego, has developed a wireless technology to monitor heart patients. According to this Computerworld article, the technology was 'originally developed by Qualcomm Inc. to track and send messages to large truck fleets.' CardioNet's service is initially focused on the 2 million U.S. people suffering from arrhythmia. Each patient is equipped with a PDA-type electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring device connected by a short-range wireless system to electrodes on his chest. Data is sent to his doctor via a built-in cell phone chip. More details, including a diagram and pictures showing how the system works are also available."
So, now my personal digital assistant can listen to my heart and assist me in the event of a heart attack. Should be handy on my Handspring Trio with a built in cell phone to call 911.
Whenever we're at the hospital or doctor's office, our blood pressure is up, so it's tough for doctors to get a real world grasp on how a patient's doing, even when taking Heisenberg's uncertaintly principle into consideration. That's where I see the biggest benefit in this device--monitoring high risk patients and getting a more accurate picture of how s/he is doing.
Aex.
Yes, there may be false positives/negatives. No machine I know of (and I've heard stories about several) can perfectly predict when someone is going to have a heart attack. There simply are too many variables and too many different varients and types of irregularities for a "one size fits all solution".
As long as the machine passes the ECG it sees to the doctor there should be no problems. If there is a cause for concern in the relayed data, the doctor can talk to the patient via other (non-PDA) means.
Probe disconnection should be easy to detect. Your skin has an electrical resistance much lower than an air gap. While human skin resistance is normally in the megaohms, a properly designed device should be able to detect this. Any decent digital multimeter which can read 20+ Megaohms likely can verify this (DMMs use low current, but I do *not* vouch for the safety of this procedure!).
Note IANAMD. Though I hope to be a Ph. D. someday :)
Friend of mine has developed software that monitor's the heartbeats of infants when they come out of delivery. This software runs on an iPaq (standard, off the shelf variety). Similar features as described in the article.
Amazing the amount of work required to get that accepted by the medical establishment.
I would imagine his solution, because it does not require special hardware (for the PDA) would be more affordable.