Cardiovascular diseases kill almost 20 million people each year, with around 22 million people at risk of sudden heart failure at any one time around the world. Lives can often be saved if acute care and cardiac surgery are carried right on time, within the so-called golden hour. And, survival rates are on the increase as treatments improve. Luckily, technology is there to help…
Thulasi Bai and S.K. Srivatsa of the Sathyabama University in India have developed the wearable cardiac telemedicine system that allows post-cardiac patients renewed mobility. The idea is to use a Bluetooth heart monitor, which periodically records an electrocardiogram (ECG) and sends that information to the patient’s doctor via SMS. In theory, this kind of system could save thousands of lives by informing the hospital about the patient’s condition — i.e. if the patient is about to get a heart attach, doctors will know!
Naturally, researches won’t stop there. Their next step is to embed the GPS data in the messages, so that doctors know exactly where their patients are at the time of crisis, as well as to use MMS for sending more data to the hospital. Sounds promising!
[Via: Gizmodo]