Implementation of international transtelephonic ECG platform for patients with ischemic heart disease

Remigijus Žaliūnas, Rimantas Benetis^{1, 2}, Giedrius Vanagas³, Rimvydas Šlapikas, Alfonsas Vainoras²

Department of Cardiology, ¹Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery, ²Institute of Cardiology, ³Department of Preventive Medicine, Kaunas University of Medicine, Lithuania

Key words: telemedicine; telecardiology; teleconsultations.

Summary. Ischemic heart disease in European countries over decades causes up to 55% of all cases of sudden death and also has a high rate of mortality, morbidity, and hospital admission. Patients with such chronic diseases also require intensive home care facilities from community nurses.

The aim was to establish international multilingual platform for transtelephonic ECG system as an alternative solution for home care and assess its performance.

Methods. During this pilot study, the international toll-free line between Lithuania and Germany was established, and practical applicability of the tele-ECG device was tested. Transtelephonic ECG system was implemented between Telemedicine Center in Bad Segeberg (Bad Segeberg Clinic, Germany), the Call Center in Kaunas at the Hospital of Kaunas University of Medicine, and a patient residence.

Results. Over a 6-month follow-up period, 34 patients were recruited. Following the ECG transmission, 86 teleconsultations were done. During the study, a total of 329 ECGs were sent by the patients; out of them, 14 ECGs were with clinical changes. Technical problems due to insufficient patient training, telecommunication systems, acoustic data transmission, and device itself were reported. Up to 23% of ECGs sent by patients were unreadable and not applicable for further clinical analysis.

Conclusions. Our study showed the potential of telemedicine facilities to overcome the problems of access that makes the technique so potentially useful, but for telemonitoring application at patient homes in a wider population, it needs to be improved in terms of technical performance, transmission and analysis automatization.

Correspondence to G. Vanagas, Department of Preventive Medicine, Kaunas University of Medicine, Eivenių 4, 50009 Kaunas, Lithuania. E-mail: giedrius.vanagas@kmu.lt

Received 17 January 2008, accepted 5 February 2009