Have you ever wondered how the experts at Cardiac Rhythm go from tracking data about your heart to generating a report about your condition, or lack thereof? Well, we picked the brains of ECG technicians over at Cardiac Rhythm, which is one of the most trusted ECG providers in the world. They were kind enough to elaborate and provide great detail. In a nutshell, here’s how they go from raw data to insightful reports that offer a conclusive verdict about your heart health.
First Things First: The Basics Of An Ecg
An electrocardiogram records your heart’s electrical activity. Through 2-D and sometimes 3-D imagery with new-age technologies, your ECG technician can gather important data about your heart’s rate, rhythm, and other metrics.
From this data, your physician will then proceed to make a diagnosis about the state of your heart health. In particular, they will be able to determine whether or not you have an arrhythmia or some other cardiac issues.
That said, here’s a step-by-step process of how the ECG process works at Cardiac Rhythm:
Choosing the Right Device
There are different types of cardiac monitoring technologies, with some of the most common ones including:
- Event monitors: True to their names, event monitors record your heart’s electrical activity at the time you’re exhibiting symptoms. Most of them are patient-triggered, in that you press a button to start the recording when you feel discomfort
- Holter monitors: These devices track data about your heart continuously for 24 to 48 hours.
- MCT monitors: mobile cardiac telemetry ECG devices typically provide monitoring of your heart’s electrical activity for up to 14 days
If you exhibit clear and frequent symptoms, the physicians at Cardiac Rhythm may fit you with an event monitor. However, in case the symptoms are infrequent or sporadic, Holter monitoring is ideal. In cases of asymptomatic arrhythmias, your physician may suggest mobile cardiac telemetry monitoring for a more conclusive ECG analysis.
The Monitoring Begins
For Cardiac Rhythm’s case, they use the Faros 180 biosensor to record your heart’s electrical activity. It presents a very convenient design since the device works both for short and long-term monitoring, hence providing a more holistic solution to match all types of patient needs.
In particular, the device will track important data about your heart’s activity and then relay this information to its cloud platform. Some of the important information that this sensor will track include:
- Heart rate variability
- Heart rate
- Ventricular depolarization
- Repolarization of the ventricles, etc.
With the Faros 180, your ECG data is relayed to the cloud in real time through wireless data transference technology, thereby reducing the number of appointments with your doctor.
ECG Analysis Now Takes Off
Cardiac Rhythm’s real-time monitoring allows physicians to start analyzing the patient’s data as soon as the biosensor is attached, compared to traditional devices where you have to wait for the entire monitoring period to elapse.
With physicians having real-time access to your heart data, they can quickly make their initial hypotheses while waiting on the full extent of the data for a more conclusive diagnosis. In particular, they will first check your heart rate to see if it is in the normal range, usually 60 to 100 bmp. Anything above or below that could be indicative of heart problems such as tachycardia and bradycardia respectively.
Then, they will check for irregular heart rhythms, by better studying the following features, among several others, of your ECG:
- QRS complex: this basically represents ventricular depolarization
- PR intervals: this maps out the time between atrial and ventricular depolarization
- P waves: they represent atrial depolarization
Depending on the different combinations of patterns or timing abnormalities of the waveforms, the ECG technician will be able to identify a potential arrhythmia or give you a clean bill of health if there’s no problem.
To help physicians speed up ECG interpretation, digital health solution providers like Cardiac Rhythm further leverage AI to assist technicians with the validation and classification of arrhythmias.
It Concludes With A Summary Report
Cardiac Rhythm’s remote cardiac monitoring platform leverages custom data to help generate patient-specific summary reports through the power of artificial intelligence algorithms.
At the end of the process, these reports will be conveyed to your physician, who will help you go through them and understand the findings. If there was a problem that was diagnosed, the physician will further use the information from this report to suggest the next course of action in terms of treatment or management of the condition.
Conclusion
It’s worth noting that with digital health provider, Cardiac Rhythm, you can even request for the doorstep biosensor activation service via a toll-free line. Then, a qualified technician will visit your home to fix the biosensor and explain how it works. Additionally, you may receive a quick guide or pocket diary to record your symptoms if any. Remember, knowledge is power so get tested today with Cardiac Rhythm’s ECG experts to
take charge of your health. Visit their website to learn more.