title: A client/server system for remote diagnosis of cardiac arrhythmias.
abstract: Health care practitioners are often faced with the task of interpreting complex heart rhythms from electrocardiograms (ECGs) produced by 12-lead ECG machines, ambulatory (Holter) monitoring systems, and intensive-care unit monitors. Usually, the practitioner caring for the patient does not have specialized training in cardiology or in ECG interpretation; and commercial programs that interpret 12-lead ECGs have been well-documented in the medical literature to perform poorly at analyzing cardiac rhythm. We believe that a system capable of providing comprehensive ECG interpretation as well as access to online consultations will be beneficial to the health care system. We hypothesized that we could develop a client-server based telemedicine system capable of providing access to (1) an on-line knowledge-based system for remote diagnosis of cardiac arrhythmias and (2) an on-line cardiologist for real-time interactive consultation using readily available resources on the Internet. Furthermore, we hypothesized that Macintosh and Microsoft Windows-based personal computers running an X server could function as the delivery platform for the developed system. Although we were successful in developing such a system that will run efficiently on a UNIX-based work-station, current personal computer X server software are not capable of running the system efficiently.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, USA.
authors.forename: D A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Tong
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Gajjala
authors.forename: L E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Widman
mesh_terms: D001145:Arrhythmias, Cardiac / Q000175:diagnosis*; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D003195:Computer Communication Networks; D003199:Computer Systems; D004562:Electrocardiography; D006801:Humans; D008838:Microcomputers; D019114:Remote Consultation; D012984:Software; D017216:Telemedicine