A technological cooperation is capable of fully automatic capture and analysis of recorded real time electrocardiogram (ECG) data, without additional effort for the clinical staff.

The combined capabilities of the Infinity monitoring system, a product of Dräger Medical (Lübeck, Germany) and the Stroke Risk Analyzer (SRA) clinic system, developed by apoplex medical technologies (Pirmasens, Germany), are intended to assist in the rapid risk analysis ECG data to for paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (pxAF). The Infinity monitoring system gateway records the multichannel ECG and automatically and transfers it as a data packet to the SRAclinic analysis server.

After the analysis of the patient´s ECG data by SRAclinic, the treating physician receives a report within the first therapy hours, which provides information about the individual risk for pxAF and indications regarding acute atrial fibrillation (AF). The report can then help guide in making therapy decisions. Until now, a separate Holter recorder was used to measure long term ECG, which had to be applied to the patient by the clinical staff using electrodes, and needed to be disconnected after recording up to three days of ECG data of. The recorded data were than analyzed following a time delay.

“We are happy having achieved a breakthrough in the detection of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation with our cooperation, and to provide the treating physicians with a unique, fast, easy and clinically validated analysis tool,” said Albert Hirtz, managing director of apoplex medical technologies.

“Unique in our combination is that the ECG data are transferred to SRAclinic without any interaction of the clinical staff,” added Herbert Schmidt, marketing manager of monitoring and IT-systems at Dräger Medical.

AF is often first detected clinically by auscultation by a health care provider; the diagnosis is then confirmed with an ECG. To confirm this diagnosis, patients may wear a portable Holter monitor for continuous ECG recording, since pxAF, episodes occur intermittently, and may only last a few seconds or minutes. pxAF is one of the most frequent causes for stroke, and even after a stroke may sometimes evade detection, and hence is untreated; as a result, the risk for recurrent strokes remains.

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Dräger Medical
apoplex medical technologies