Dictionary-based monitoring of premature ventricular contractions: An ultra-low-cost point-of-care service

Publication date: May 2018Source: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, Volume 87Author(s): S. Chandra Bollepalli, S. Sastry Challa, Laxminarayana Anumandla, Soumya JanaAbstractWhile cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are prevalent across economic strata, the economically disadvantaged population is disproportionately affected due to the high cost of traditional CVD management, involving consultations, testing and monitoring at medical facilities. Accordingly, developing an ultra-low-cost alternative, affordable even to groups at the bottom of the economic pyramid, has emerged as a societal imperative. Against this backdrop, we propose an inexpensive yet accurate home-based electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring service. Specifically, we seek to provide point-of-care monitoring of premature ventricular contractions (PVCs), high frequency of which could indicate the onset of potentially fatal arrhythmia. Note that the first-generation telecardiology system acquires the ECG, transmits it to a professional diagnostic center without processing, and nearly achieves the diagnostic accuracy of a bedside setup. In the process, such a system incurs high bandwidth cost and requires the physicians to process the entire record for diagnosis. To reduce cost, current telecardiology systems compress data before transmitting. However, the burden on physicians remains undiminished. In this context, we develop a dictionary-based algorithm that reduces not only the overall bandwidth requirement, but als...
Source: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine - Category: Bioinformatics Source Type: research