ECG monitoring in the mobile medical era is better than Holter?

Release date: 2016-03-25

Intelligent hardware is an extension of the development of mobile Internet, and in the era of mobile medical, many medical hardware has begun to become smaller and wireless. There have been similar changes in the field of ECG monitoring in recent years.

On March 22, the reporter participated in the Oriental Taihua “Celling Disease Risk Event Family Testing Technology Conference” and introduced three “Thai Control” series of ECG and blood pressure testing equipment, including a single-channel ECG record. Instrument (Taiwan Control), the official said that this is the first wearable home single-channel ECG recorder obtained by CFDA, which can effectively detect ECG changes such as arrhythmia and ST-T segment changes in related parts.

Thai control

Portable electrocardiographs, or more fashionable words called wearable ECG monitoring, are not the first time. Now many entrepreneurs have noticed this trend and have developed such products. What they hope is that their products will eventually Enter the family like a blood glucose meter or a sphygmomanometer.

From Holter to wearable ECG monitoring

Arrhythmia is a common symptom, but it is difficult to detect. The traditional approach is to use an electrocardiogram (EKG) that patients can test in the hospital, including a stress test. The problem is that arrhythmia is not what you want it to happen. The stress test in the hospital, such as letting the user run on the treadmill for 15 minutes, is still different from the physiological and psychological pressure that the patient usually encounters.

So for quite a long time, doctors used a Holter Monitor to detect arrhythmias. These products usually have 5-7 electrodes attached to the chest, used to monitor the heart's electrical signals and recorded, stored in a storage device that is hung on the waist or neck, and then sent to the doctor for analysis. Usually Holter is worn for about 24 hours, mainly because it is cumbersome and interferes with the user's daily activities.

New wireless products may change this situation. In a blog post published on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) website in 2014, Dr. Francis Collins, MD, presented the results of a new product. Researchers funded by NIH compared the Zio Patch developed by iRhythm Technologies with the traditional Holter.

On the left is the right side of the patch is Holter, picture source: NIH website

The researchers asked 146 patients who needed arrhythmia testing to wear both products for 24 hours. Then Holter was removed and the volunteers continued to wear Zio Patch until they didn't want to wear it.

As a result, in the first 24 hours, Holter detected 15% more arrhythmia events than Patch: the researchers attributed this difference primarily to Patch's data algorithm rather than detection. However, because patients wear patches for longer periods of time – an average of 11 days – the end result is that Patch can detect many more arrhythmia events than Holter.

The results of the above study show that the performance of this kind of products is much better than the traditional Holter, which is probably why many domestic companies, including Thai control, have launched similar products.

However, the home wearable ECG monitoring products are not completely without worrying. In the interview session of yesterday's press conference, Lei Feng.com interviewed Wu Wei, the founder of Dongfang Taihua, on some issues.

Q: Before the reporter tried this product, I found that this product occasionally slipped on the body, and always showed that the measurement position is not accurate. Is there any solution to this problem?

A: Because the viscosity of people's skin is different, the dry skin is not easy to stick. When there is sweat and back, it will fall off, but under normal circumstances, it will not slip if it is properly worn.

At the time of use, both men and women strive to be placed in a relatively stable position. The more accurate the measurement is not from the heart, the abnormality of the heart rhythm can be detected by placing it in the position of the chest, which is called arrhythmia. We recommend that you try to put it on a flat surface and try not to stick it on the surface. Once placed on the surface, it is easy to fall off.

Q: How to eliminate external interference in non-professional medical environment to ensure the accuracy of measurement results?

A: We are not restricted by professional medical staff at home, and may be measured very randomly, such as strenuous exercise. Our solution is that when this happens, after the ECG is transmitted, ask our professional doctors in the background to encounter this situation, call or text us at the first time to inform our users and tell him that they are correctly worn and correct. measuring. In this case, although it may be troublesome to look at, it is possible to detect a dangerous incident because of our correct measurement, and it is possible to save a life. This is our company's corresponding requirement for the service platform and professional service platform.

Q: Since it involves network transmission of data, how to ensure the security of personal information?

A: Personal information security, first of all, our country has relevant legal provisions on personal information security. When we use it, we will have a mutual agreement with the user. If we disclose relevant user personal information for our reasons, we will Bear the corresponding legal responsibilities and are willing to compensate for the corresponding losses. In the specific work, we first ask us by law.

The second is technically, our database is self-constructed. The events that occurred some time ago are actually managed data, hosted in the network disk of Baidu, Tencent, Ali or other companies. And our company is self-investment, we have done a lot of technical encryption work on it, it is very difficult for hackers to attack. Of course, I can't guarantee that people with such high technology will not attack. Therefore, there are technical and legal double commitments.

postscript

Mobile medical care is still an emerging field. Although many new products show better results than traditional devices, they may not necessarily reach a very mature level, and many users have not yet learned. In the case of wearable ECG monitoring products, it may be early to become a mature household product like a blood glucose meter, but there are still many areas for improvement before this.

Source: Lei Feng Net