Home EKG...

[chappy]

So, when you show up at someone's house and they say, "I had a run of PVC's a few minutes ago, see..." as they show you their strip, what will you do?

Seriously, what are your thoughts of these little hand-held EKG's getting around? Should the average lay-person have one?

Click here...

and here...

[HERBIE1]

Why not? For decades cardiologists have used home monitors to capture transient arrythmias, but the data was downloaded or electronically sent off site. Now we have real time output to show us and ER docs exactly what happened with a patient. I think it's a great thing. More evidence for their doctor to pinpoint an elusive problem.

I recall a person who was dealing with some type of transient problem that their doctors had not yet been able to capture. They would have episodes of near syncope, palpitations, but were never able to document or reproduce the problems, even after multiple episodes. The person called us for the same symptoms, we hooked them up, and we actually captured a 10 second episode of V-tach. The patient actually had their cardiologist on speed dial, called him after the episode resolved on it;s own, and I spoke with the doctor. He was elated that the problem was finally documented and jokingly offered to pay for a copy of the EKG strip. We made a couple copies, delivered the patient to the ER along with the evidence of their problem.

[hatelilpeepees]

Yes I have responded to several people who were wearing monitors for 24-72 hours to try to capture whatever was going on with them. I remember we were called to an "arrest", but the patient met us at the door with phone in hand. The monitor folks were on the phone, and had noted that the patient had 6 pauses greater than 8 seconds, but that was 5 days after he dropped the monitor off at the Doctor's office. Think what could have happened, my question would be do these hand-helds store any data, and if so for how long ?

P.S, answered my own question, the top one records for 30 seconds when you push the button, signaling an event.

Edited May 21, 2011 by hatelilpeepees