Portable out-of-hospital electrocardiography: A review of current technologies

Availability of portable and home-based electrocardiography (ECG) is an important medical innovation, which has a potential to transform medical care. We performed this review to understand the current state of out-of-hospital portable ECG technologies with respect to their scope, ease of use, data transmission capabilities, and diagnostic accuracy.

We conducted PubMed and Internet searches for "handheld" or "wearable" or "patch" electrocardiography devices to enlist available technologies. We also searched PubMed with names of individual devices to obtain additional citations. We classified available devices as a "single limb lead ECG recording devices" and chest-lead "ECG recording devices." If a device used more than three electrodes, it was defined as a conventional electrocardiography or Holter machine and was excluded from this review.

We identified a total of 15 devices. Overall, only six of these devices (five single lead and one chest lead) featured in published medical literature as identified from PubMed search. A total of 13 citations were available for the single limb lead ECG recording devices and 6 citations for the chest-lead ECG recording devices.

Despite the increase in number of such devices, published biomedical literature regarding their diagnostic accuracy, reproducibility, or utility is scant.