Summary
Objective: Telemonitoring of vital signs is an established option in treatment of patients with
chronic heart failure (CHF). In order to allow for early detection of atrial fibrillation
(AF) which is highly prevalent in the CHF population telemonitoring programs should
include electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. It was therefore the aim to extend our current
home monitoring system based on mobile phones and Near Field Communication technology
(NFC) to enable patients acquiring their ECG signals autonomously in an easy-to-use
way.
Methods: We prototypically developed a sensing device for the concurrent acquisition of blood
pressure and ECG signals. The design of the device equipped with NFC technology and
Bluetooth allowed for intuitive interaction with a mobile phone based patient terminal.
This ECG monitoring system was evaluated in the course of a clinical pilot trial to
assess the system’s technical feasibility, usability and patient’s adherence to twice
daily usage.
Results: 21 patients (4f, 54 ± 14 years) suffering from CHF were included in the study and
were asked to transmit two ECG recordings per day via the telemonitoring system autonomously
over a monitoring period of seven days. One patient dropped out from the study. 211
data sets were transmitted over a cumulative monitoring period of 140 days (overall
adherence rate 82.2%). 55% and 8% of the transmitted ECG signals were sufficient for
ventricular and atrial rhythm assessment, respectively.
Conclusion: Although ECG signal quality has to be improved for better AF detection the developed
communication design of joining Bluetooth and NFC technology in our telemonitoring
system allows for ambulatory ECG acquisition with high adherence rates and system
usability in heart failure patients.
Keywords
Telemedicine - telehealth - interfaces - usability - mobile phone - near field communication
- ECG
