Spectocor today announced its PocketECG, which pulls together traditional Holter, event and mobile telemetry monitoring, analyzing and then streaming cardiac rhythm data continuously to a monitoring center. The monitoring device is compact and mobile, using cellular networks for immediate transmissions.

Arrhythmias can result from coronary artery disease, changes in heart muscle, heart attacks, healing after surgery and irregular heartbeats. Since some arrhythmias can be very serious – and there are about 300,000 deaths from them a year – it’s vital to get medical help right away. Some athletes, with no prior heart problems, have died this way, in what is called sudden death. Monitors that continuously track heartbeat can alert clinicians to any sudden change in rhythm and get help right away.

“The PocketECG monitoring system is an advanced milestone in long-term patient arrhythmia diagnostics that is especially effective in detecting asymptomatic and rare events, such as paroxysmal atrial fibrillation,” said Joe Bogdan, managing partner of Spectocor, in the press release.

The PocketECG system was developed in response to physicians who demand a monitoring device that analyzes every heartbeat, provides remote access to full-disclosure ECG data and generates quantitative statistical reports for all ventricular and supraventricular arrhythmias. With PocketECG, all cardiac rhythm abnormalities are confirmed by certified cardiac technicians 24/7, 365 days a year.

“Other event monitoring and mobile telemetry systems do not transmit full disclosure data and have very basic algorithms, which are incapable of detecting ectopies with short durations such as a 4-beat VTach, SVT, trigeminy, bigeminy, triplet, couplet, PVC or PAC,” Bogdan added.

PocketECG features include monitors that confirm each and every abnormal heart rhythm; a Web site that provides remote access to all reports with full statistics and annotated rhythm strips; complete analysis of occurrences of each arrhythmia, total burden, fastest and slowest rates and maximum duration of all episodes, and consolidation of  quantitative reports to help physicians diagnose quickly.

Patients play their part, too. Patient-triggered transmissions are used to provide correlation between symptoms and patient activity with potential arrhythmias.

Clinical and patient care specialists are assigned to each patient and are overseen by senior leadership, who are trained in identifying abnormal rhythms and setting up interventions as needed. The PocketECG system’s proprietary algorithms are based upon thousands of hours of real-life ECG recordings from Holter systems and intensive care units.