First trial of home ECG and blood pressure telemonitoring system in Macau.
OBJECTIVE
To determine the feasibility of home monitoring of patients with cardiac disease or hypertension.


METHODS
An improved home electrocardiographic and blood pressure telemonitoring system linked to a central workstation was tested in 10 patients in Macau for 3 months.


RESULTS
The total number of connections was 1377. Of the automatic alarm connections, 32.5% were false positive, with the percentage of false positives ranging from 7.6 to 54.6 for different patients. Both patients and physicians found the system easy to use.


CONCLUSIONS
Further investigation is required to match the number of patients with the system capacity. A more robust dysrhythmia detection algorithm is needed to reduce the number of false alarms. Nevertheless, the results were sufficiently good that the trial is being expanded.
Zhang
Y
Y
Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Life Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
Bai
J
J
Zhou
X
X
Dai
B
B
Cui
Z
Z
Lin
J
J
Ding
C
C
Zhang
P
P
Yu
B
B
Ye
L
L
Shen
D
D
Zhu
Z
Z
Zhang
J
J
Ye
D
D
Zhou
L
L
D001795:Blood Pressure Determination; D003201:Computers; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000175:diagnosis; D004562:Electrocardiography; D005189:False Positive Reactions; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000175:diagnosis; D008256:Macau; D012648:Self Care; D017216:Telemedicine