Remote Heart Monitors - Telemedicine in the
News
The Food and Drug
Administration's rejection of Medtronic's remote heart monitor has been big
news - probably because it was reported in the "newspaper of record", the
New York Times.
According to the report:
Medicine's march toward remote monitoring of patients hit at least a
temporary roadblock yesterday.
An implanted wireless device intended to continuously monitor patients with
weak hearts — and then provide the data to doctors via the Internet — did
not keep enough of them out of the hospital to prove its effectiveness,
according to a panel of experts assembled by the Food and Drug
Administration.
The device's manufacturer, Medtronic, has been developing wireless data-gathering
technology for implanted therapeutic devices like defibrillators and insulin
pumps. It aimed to make the product reviewed yesterday, a device the size of
a pocket watch and known as the Chronicle implantable hemodynamic monitor,
the first major implant approved solely for diagnostic monitoring.
The Chronicle monitors blood pressure and other conditions inside the hearts
of patients suffering heart failure, a disease that reduces the amount of
blood the heart pumps. The goal is to warn patients, their doctors and other
people who care for them when they are in danger at a point before they need
to be hospitalized.
In 2005, Medtronic had
reported promising test results, commenting:
Medtronic is dedicated to finding new ways to help improve the management
of heart failure, and COMPASS-HF shows that with implantable hemodynamic
monitoring clinicians can be alerted to early signs of heart failure
deterioration and proactively tailor medical therapy to improve the
patient’s condition. We are optimistic that the Chronicle device will soon
move beyond investigational use for the benefit of many heart failure
patients.
You can read more at
A Hearty Life and in an
AP report.
Other companies with remote heart monitor systems include
St Jude Medical, CardioNet and
Cardiac Telecom
Corporation.
March 5th,
2007
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