Wearable computing for patients with coronary diseases: Gathering efforts by comparing methods

Cardiovascular diseases are a prime cause of mortality and morbidity around the world. The World Health Organization names this as a global epidemic identifying it as a big challenge to Information and Communication Technologies that can provide valuable tools to improve population health and well-being. In tandem with a strategy to provide information and education to individuals at risk, several projects across the world at national or regional levels are trying to address this challenge. The HEARTRONIC project developed an innovative system for prevention and early warning by continuous monitoring the heart conditions. This system is wearable by the patient, monitors and analyzes the ECG, and in the event of results that could predict a heart attack or stroke an alert message is sent to a server and then relayed to the responsible healthcare professional. The system uses ECG processing for automatic detection of abnormal functioning. First response actions are taken but the healthcare professionals are always in the control. The BIOMED-TEL project developed an innovative remote patient monitor that supervises 24 hours/7 days the main patient's vital signals in its environment. These signs are: SpO2, ECG one derivation, arterial blood pressure (BP), in conjunction with the body vibration acquired from chest zone and, glucose concentration in blood all above mentioned signs being relevant for the health patient status. With the correlation of the signals, the remote monitor is able to dynamical adapt his working regime from local storage of data acquired (as a classical holter) to continuously transmission of data acquired from patient to the hospital server, providing a quick time intervention of the health care professional in case of patient's alarm or emergency situation. Both projects are gathering efforts by comparing methods in order to assess the best practices and address the technical challenges that came across the development of such useful- - platforms.