Dr Charles Worringham and Bruce Satchwell
Our idea is to allow heart patients a much more flexible form of supervised exercise rehabilitation. The system we have trialled combines the Alive Technologies activity monitor with a GPS receiver and programmed smartphone to transmit a patient’s single-lead ECG, heart rate, position, and speed to a secure server while they undertake supervised exercise. At the base station, the supervising exercise physiologist oversees the exercise program and can report ECG abnormalities to the cardiologist or contact emergency services with the patient’s location in case of an emergency.
Innovation
The novel aspects are of this idea are twofold: firstly the linking into a single system Alive’s ECG monitor, a GPS receiver, a programmed smartphone, and a secure server. This enables the other innovative aspect – offering properly supervised rehabilitation to heart patients who would otherwise not be able to receive it.
Target market
The system aims to provide a new tool to providers of cardiac rehabilitation services – public and private hospitals, private practitioners or practices in cardiology and cardiovascular medicine, exercise physiologists, and other relevant professionals. In the future, we see new versions using movement data being of value in rehabilitation for stroke and movement disorders.
Customer benefit
The benefit to the patient is the ability to take part in supervised rehabilitative exercise after a heart attack or heart surgery if they cannot attend a conventional hospital-based programme, for example, after work and near their home. Patients feel confident about their exercise when they know they are being monitored. For hospitals and professionals, we believe the system will help extend cardiac rehabilitation to the large numbers of patients who either never begin or fail to complete a conventional rehabilitation programme because of time and travel commitments.
Contact:
Dr Charles Worringham
Queensland University of
Technology Institute of Health
and Biomedical Innovation
Kelvin GroveUrban Village
Queensland 4059
Australia
phone: +61 (0) 73 13 86 172
e-mail: c.worringham@qut.edu.au
www.ihbi.qut.edu.au/research/injury/cardiomobile/index.jsp
Bruce Satchwell
Alive Technologies Pty Ltd.
11 Technology Drive
Arundel
Queensland 4214
Australia
phone: +61 (0) 75 56 32 871
e-mail: bruce@alivetec.com
www.alivetec.com
