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12-Lead Clinical ECG Design Open Sourced; Supports Tablets, Too
New submitter isza writes "MobilECG is probably the first open source clinical-grade electrocardiograph with simultaneous 12-lead recording and Android support. It has been designed to meet all the relevant medical standards (ISO 60601-1, etc.). Manufacturing cost @ 1000 pieces: ~$110. I had worked at a medical device company designing clinical electrocardiographs for three years. Fed up with the unreasonably high price, cumbersome design, and dishonest distribution practices of clinical ECG machines, I started working on a high-quality ECG that is different. After a couple of failed attempts to get funding for the expensive certification process and completely running out of funds, I decided to publish everything under a license that allows others to finalize and manufacture it or reuse parts of it in other projects." From the project page linked: "The software is licensed under WTFPL, the hardware under CERN OHL 1.2," and a few words of disclaimer: "Note: the design is functional but unfinished, it needs additional work before it can be certified. There are also some known bugs in it. Most of the software is unimplemented." Conventional crowdfunding may have fallen short, but Isza has proposed an interesting bargain for working on the project again himself: that will happen if he raises via donation half the amount of his original $22,000 investment.
Seriously, why? The study of medicine has only one goal. Improve the life expectancy of human beings. Surely any profession in which proactively benefits the human race should be patent and royalty-free to allow other human beings to improve and advance the technology. Why should we pay $1000's for clunky and out-dated machinery when computerisation has allowed us to minaturise, improve and cheapen, the manufacturing of medical devices.
I'm glad there's some people in this world who see sense rather than paychecks.
If you gave me a choice between a printer and a giraffe with explosive diarrhoea, i'll get my ladder and my raincoat
"Here's a medical device that meets none of the standards of today, and it has bugs that need to be worked out. But, it's cheap!"
No one wants a medical device if they're not able to sue the pants off of someone, in the event that it fails.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
We can come up with a million dollars to make a sequel to one of the worst games of all time, Myst, and we can't come up with $22,000 to actually change the world?
Great, all this effort wasted because you can't be bothered to pick a license that means something under copyright law. Good job.
In america is controlled by very few. Those with novel or innovated ideas are locked down and held tight by controlling interests in our economy.
The patent system is broken. And intelligent productive people are forced into slavery.
Nope, just was gas. Has passed.
or, as an alternative, founder(s) with an impressive track record of delivering products that gained marketplace traction, should be a minimum requirement for a FOSS Slashvertisement.
There are lots and lots of these DIY "open source" gadgets from kitchen table entrepreneurs.
I have been a certified/licensed EMT for over 10 years.
"Medical devices are expensive to make."
For many commonly-used devices (ECG, pulse oximeter, etc.), the level of technology implemented is magnitudes less than that of a decent smartphone. Sure, these aren't mass market items--but I'm also hard pressed to understand why it doesn't make sense to have an alternative to a LifePak which easily costs $15K+. Case in point: the AED you can easily buy from Costco in the neighborhood of $1K--and has lots of sophisticated logic. Just because the thing has blinky lights and makes "bing" noises doesn't mean it should be exorbitantly priced.
"People need a manufacturer big enough to sue."
Circular reasoning on the best of days. Does a commercial implementer of this device need a legal team? Yes. Is the pragmatic implementation of a device at lower cost that's reliable and lawsuit-resistant possible? Absolutely.
Note: the design is functional but unfinished, it needs additional work before it can be certified. There are also some known bugs in it. Most of the software is unimplemented.
This tells me that no matter how promising your hardware design and software, I am going to be spending a lot of money before I have anything close to a commercially viable product.
This will save many lives, all over the world. Wow.
I just donated $300 to the original Indiegogo campaign, and I'm contributing another $100 directly.
I'm someone who doesn't have much money, nor do I even know anyone with a heart condition, but this will do SERIOUS GOOD.
I doubt this was written by a lawyer. This might be an impediment to being picked up by a serious project because they can't take the risk that the WTFPL doesn't actually mean anything from a legal perspective.
This will save many lives, all over the world. Wow.
I just donated $300 to the original Indiegogo campaign, and I'm contributing another $100 directly.
I'm someone who doesn't have much money, nor do I even know anyone with a heart condition, but this will do SERIOUS GOOD.
I just donated $1000! It's going to be awesome!
Okay, this may be a stupid question, but I only count 10 leads in the pictures of the device, so where/what are the other two? Grounds?
-- Alastair
But only a start. Researchers using - it was either 48 or 64 leads - were able to identify specific muscles that were showing abnormalities long before those abnormalities turned into organ failure. Isolating problems to that degree just by collecting more of the same data would seem a great way to help prevent problems serious enough to show up on a conventional system ever developing in the first place.
In other words, why not turn thus from being open source medicine into an open source debugger? Why let things get to the point where medicine, rather than our own creativity is needed?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The curse of Open Source. Good luck getting that last 10% finished.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Seriously, such a device would have a huge amount of clients waiting (every doctor with the matching qualification that does not want to risk a high credit on availble high prized ECGs, or doctors in the process of aquiring this qualification, as well as developing countries).
To me it sounds right for e.g. kickstarter and advertise it in the right media to find enough backers. Just be transparent about the necessary steps and its progress.
fwiw... It's 230 K, not 22 K$. but doesn't change your point. ECG is so nerdy... He should emphasize other uses, and try to market based on that. He could call it a "biorhythmic training device for understanding the crystals, and getting in touch with your aura. or talk up the "biofeedback" aspects of it, how it will help with meditation. That will sell to one crowd. Figure out how to use it as a kind of game controller, and the internet will fund in a (wait for it!) heartbeat.
Low cost, high profit: Perhaps commercial ECGs and other medical devices are built just like this power supply:
http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Power-Supply.aspx
nor do I even know anyone with a heart condition
You almost definitely do, just don't even know it. You may even have one yourself. It is a wildly under-diagnosed condition. (I've been fighting some seriously high blood pressure for years... a serious problem with zero symptoms... well, until a couple decades pass if you ignore the problem, then just about any part of your body can fail.)
There is no technical reason they should be so expensive, components wise I mean. But the development and QA processes, and regulatory filings, audits, and all the other crap to make it suitable for medical purposes, make it so. That is why a WII balance board costs peanuts, but a medical device with similar functionality costs 10K. If has to be developed according to FDA regulatiosn, there need to be mandatory QA controls in place, software needs to be developed according to medical use standards, there is a regular FDA audit to deal with, liability, studies and validations, etc.
The WII balance board just needs to work. For a while. Non calibrated, non validated, and if it doesn't do what is expected in some cases, you get to call tech support instead of file a million dollar lawsuit.
I lost a son, age 25, to sudden cardiac arrest. He left the gym, died a half hour later in his office. We thought he was the healthiest one in the family. Every gym should have an EKG machine as well as an AED. I hope you never learn what I know --- no loss exceeds losing a child.
I lost a son, age 25, to sudden cardiac arrest. He left the gym, died a half hour later in his office. We thought he was the healthiest one in the family. Every gym should have an EKG machine as well as an AED. I hope you never learn what I know --- no loss exceeds losing a child. Search for Jos Claerbout
"...of clinical ECG machines" (summary). Does the submitter or anyone else care to elaborate?
you need FDA 510k if you want to have a medical device. costs are high for a reason. If you have ever developed a system in a highly regulated environment you know what I am talking about.
Now ask yourself why doctors in the US have to go vastly into debt, and then charge a fortune to recover from the debt. That's not how the rest of the planet runs. In France for example, which has much better medical service than the US, the training is free. This means that the best, most talented people get to become doctors regardless of wealth. And then they can work for a normal professional wage, without being forced to absolutely maximize revenue. So they can focus on providing medical care instead of dealing with financing.
As for the "there's no money for infrastructure", don't blame "boomers". Plenty of us were willing to pay the taxes to run the country, and we were paying down the debt and starting to save up for a rainy day. But one of the political parties became obsessed with dodging taxes while ramping up spending. But don't blame the rest of us for that!
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
http://electrosmart.com.ar/