Monitoring patients' health remotely

Over at Wired Playbook, I wrote a piece about a group of researchers using ECG sensors, GPS, accelerometers, and a mobile phone to accurately monitor a patient with heart trouble, in real-time, during their prescribed exercise routine.

...[E]ven in this small pilot study, the device proved some worth: On two separate occasions, the researchers noted distinct abnormalities in a patient’s ECG and consulted with a cardiologist. While the cardiac events turned out to be benign, the fact that such subtleties could be picked up with remote monitoring holds much promise for the tech. Had a more serious medical emergency transpired, the researchers could have summoned an ambulance to the scene using the transmitted GPS data.

Though this was a small pilot study, the proof-of-concept research was a cool step forward for remote monitoring of health.

Read the entire article here.

Photo via Flickr / rwk

Worringham, C., Rojek, A., & Stewart, I. (2011). Development and Feasibility of a Smartphone, ECG and GPS Based System for Remotely Monitoring Exercise in Cardiac Rehabilitation PLoS ONE, 6 (2) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0014669

Brian Mossop is currently the Community Editor at Wired, where he works across the brand, both magazine and website, to build and maintain strong social communities. Brian received a BS in Electrical Engineering from Lafayette College, and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University in 2006. His postdoctoral work was in neuroscience at UCSF and Genentech.

Brian has written about science for Wired, Scientific American, Slate, Scientific American MIND, and elsewhere. He primarily cover topics on neuroscience, development, behavior change, and health.

Contact Brian at brian.mossop@gmail.com, on Twitter (@bmossop), or visit his personal website.