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Remote Monitoring of Cardiac Patients
| Title | Remote Monitoring of Cardiac Patients |
| Aidamount | 2.039.740 |
| Organization | L.M. Ericsson A/S |
| Conclusion | Ingen side valgt |
| Homepage | No homepage |
| Contact | Yousef Jasemian, Software Designer yousef.jasemian@lmd.ericsson.se |
| Other participants | Sonofon
Danica Biomedical
The Hospital of Aalborg, the cardiological dept, the County of North Jutland |
| Theme | Digital Admin. |
| Keywords | heart disease
Hospital
IT-Health
Mobile technology, SMS, GPRS, WAP
Mobile, technology
Mobiltelefoni
Tele medicine
Wireless technology |
| Project start | 16 November 2001 |
| Project end | 31 December 2003 |
| Description | The concepts of streamlining and rationalisation are well known in almost every industry today.
And modern health services, too, seek to put resources to efficient use. A field of focus within the health services could be the improvement of existing methods of diagnosing and treatment. Today diagnosing and treatment is often performed during hospitalization. With such days of admission being a heavy burden of cost to the health budget, it is found attractive to assess the scope of moving treatment from the hospitals into the patients' homes.
The Project Goal:
The general purpose of the project is to establish a new telemedical method of examination of cardiac patients to reduce the demand for hospital bed-days, to bring down the costs of the health sector and, in some cases, to optimize the treatment of the patient.
The aim is to build a telemedical system for the continuous wireless transmission of cardiological signals from the patient's home to the Cardiological Department of the Hospital of Aalborg. This prevents or cuts down admissions and the number of bed-days, and the effect from the treatment can be assessed under the conditions normally experienced by the patient.
The project is estimated to be a pilot project for the development and testing of this method of telemedical cardiac monitoring.
Background:
40 pct of patients admitted to the cardiological department in Aalborg go there for arrhythmia. The length of stay varies, and is mainly between 2-5 days. The patient group is treated with a view to normalizing their arrhythmia disorder, or to achieve a normal heart rate on an average basis.
Today patients are hospitalized to be continuously monitored using telemetry around the clock. Recordings are made for breaks in the heart rate, a too slow average heart rate over one minute, a too fast average heart rate over one minute, signs of malignant arrhythmia and short, very fast heart rates. The patients are treated with medication to adjust the heart rate, either as an intravenous or pill treatment.
Experience proves a good effect of the medication in patients keeping a low level of physical activity as is normally the case during a stay on hospital. However, with more active patients, the effect of the medication is fairly erratic. This means that to patients leading an active everyday life, the treatment can prove insufficient. This makes it more purposeful to asses the effects of the treatment with the patients in their daily environment performing their usual activities and routines.
Assumed Areas of Improvement:
It is estimated that approx. 50 pct of those admitted to hospital today could be safely monitored in their homes using the system in mention. Patients are often discharged from hospital in consideration of other patients with a more urgent need for admission. So the pilot project would add the possibility of monitoring the patients for a longer period of time than now to provide a more certain documentation that the treatment is appropriate.
For patients referred to ambulant cardiological recording there is a waiting list of approx. 2 months, and in connection with calling up, mounting of taperecorder, metering and interpretation of the result and responding, several procedures are involved with a heavy demand on resources. Using an online system with the telemetrical equipment developed in this project allows a faster and more efficient examination of patients referred to ambulant cardiological recording. The Hospital of Aalborg examines approx. 850 patients every year using ambulant cardiological recordings. The new technology is expected to phase out this type of examination.
With a few modifications the telemedical system in mention should be convertible to other monitoring systems within the health services.
The project is a cooperation between Ericsson , Danica Biomedical, Sonofon, the University of Aalborg, and the Hospital of Aalborg. It is scheduled to launch on November 1 2001 and to be concluded on March 20 2003. |
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