A wireless ECG system for continuous event recording and communication to a clinical alarm station

Development of new wearable biomedical sensors within a wireless infrastructure opens up possibilities for new telemedical applications leading to significant improvements in continuous monitoring, and thereby to better quality of patient care. In this paper we describe a new concept for a wireless electrocardiogram (ECG) system intended for continuous monitoring of ECG activity especially designed for arrhythmia diagnostic purposes. The patient is wearing an ECG sensor, "a smart electronic electrode", with wireless transmission of ECG signals to a dedicated hand held device (HHD). This device is monitoring the continuously recorded ECG signal, and can detect abnormal ECG activity using an automatic arrhythmia detector. Based on this, the device will transmit alarm conditions to a remote clinical alarm station (CAS). The system will act as a continuous event recorder, which can be used to follow up patients who have survived cardiac arrest, ventricular tachycardia or cardiac syncope but also for diagnostic purposes for patients with diffuse arrhythmia symptoms. This paper describes the principle design requirements for the new wireless ECG sensor and system design for the HHD in order to transfer detected alarms to the CAS.