Research Article Application of Handheld Tele-ECG for Health Care Delivery

Copyright © 2014 Meenu Singh et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Telemonitoring is a medical practice that involves remotely monitoring patients who are not at the same location as the health care provider.The purpose of our study was to use handheld tele-electrocardiogram (ECG) developed by Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) to identify heart conditions in the rural underserved population where the doctor-patient ratio is low and access to health care is difficult. The objective of our study was clinical validation of handheld tele-ECG as a screening tool for evaluation of cardiac diseases in the rural population. ECG was obtained in 450 individuals (mean age 31.49 ± 20.058) residing in the periphery of Chandigarh, India, from April 2011 to March 2013, using the handheld tele-ECG machine. The data were then transmitted to physicians in Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, for their expert opinion. ECG was interpreted as normal in 70 % individuals. Left ventricular hypertrophy (9.3%) was the commonest abnormality followed closely by old myocardial infarction (5.3%). Patient satisfaction was reported to be ∼95%. Thus, it can be safely concluded that tele-ECG is a portable, cost-effective, and convenient tool for diagnosis and monitoring of heart diseases and thus improves quality an