%0 Journal Article
%T Clinical Evaluation of a Mobile Heart Rhythm Telemonitoring System
%A Hristo Mateev
%A Iana Simova
%A Tzvetana Katova
%A Nikolay Dimitrov
%J ISRN Cardiology
%D 2012
%R 10.5402/2012/192670
%X Purpose. To evaluate the clinical applicability of a telemonitoring system: telemetric system for collection and distant surveillance of medical information (TEMEO). Methods. We evaluated 60 patients, applying simultaneously standard Holter ECG and telemonitoring. Two different comparisons were performed: (1) TEMEO ECG with standard 12-lead ECG; (2) TEMEO Holter with standard ECG Holter. Results. We found a very high coincidence rate (99.3%) between TEMEO derived ECGs and standard ECGs. Intraclass correlation coefficient analysis revealed high and significant correlation coefficients regarding average, maximal, and minimal heart rate, % of time in tachycardia, single supraventricular ectopic beats (SVEB), and single and couplets of ventricular ectopic beats (VEB) between Holter ECG and TEMEO derived parameters. Couplets of SVEB were recorded as different by the two monitoring systems, however, with a borderline statistical significance. Conclusions. TEMEO derived ECGs have a very high coincidence rate with standard ECGs. TEMEO patient monitoring provides results that are similar to those derived from a standard Holter ECG. 1. Introduction Telemedicine is a relatively new medical trend which incorporates medicine, telecommunications, and information technologies, providing diagnostic workup, treatment, consulting, and training. It enables a patient to get specialized medical advice 24 hours a day independent of his/her location. Telemedicine has been acknowledged in world-leading countries and there are a large number of clinical trials and even some medical journals devoted entirely to this topic. Most of telemonitoring studies however focus on heart failure population [1¨C5], about 3500 patients included in total, with different kinds of data transmission. Results from most [1¨C4], but not all [5], of these studies have shown that telemonitoring can be effective in clinical management of patients. Experience with ECG monitoring is still insufficient. Most of the results come from laboratory tests and small clinical trials [6¨C16], while data transmission via mobile network is rare. Telemonitoring systems are designed in various ways and adapted to detect and transmit information regarding different clinical parameters. Systems that detect RR intervals and are able to record electrocardiograms (ECG) do not yet have a large clinical application. After performing a literature search we were not able to find a clinical study comparing such a system with the gold standard for ambulatory ECG monitoring¡ªHolter ECG system. Considering this and some existing
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn.cardiology/2012/192670/