Clinical validation of a low-cost telemedicine equipment remote medical diagnostics kit at a tertiary care hospital.
BACKGROUND
The Remote Medical Diagnostics kit is an indigenous and low-cost technology that can measure and transmit via the internet 6 clinical parameters viz. Blood pressure (BP), pulse, temperature, oxygen saturation, 12-lead Electrocardiogram (ECG) and heart/breath sounds. Prior to commercial use, it needs clinical validation.


METHODS
Fifty three patients (including 1 acute myocardial infarction) were evaluated for the above parameters using accepted standard methods and the Remote Medical Diagnostics kit.


RESULTS
The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) for systolic BP (SBP), diastolic BP (DBP), saturation pulse, manual pulse and temperature was 0.927, 0.904, 0.989, 0.99 and 0.912 indicating a high degree of agreement between the two methods. For oxygen saturation, the ICC was 0.763 indicating a moderately high agreement. For heart sounds, the kappa coefficient (kappa) for inter-rater reliability was 0.48 (observed agreement of 96.1%). For breath sounds, the 'kappa' value was 0.48 indicating moderate agreement. For the breath sounds, the 'kappa' value was 0.38, indicating fair agreement (the observed agreement of 94.2%). For the ECG, the observed agreement was 94.4% by visual assessment.


CONCLUSIONS
At the bedside, the Remote Medical Diagnostics kit was clinically validated for the above 6 parameters.
Math
R S
RS
Department of Cardiology, Cardiothoracic Sciences Centre, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
Mishra
S
S
Kumar
K S
KS
Bahl
V K
VK
D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D003935:Diagnostic Techniques, Cardiovascular / Q000191:economics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D010808:Physical Examination / Q000295:instrumentation*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000191:economics / Q000295:instrumentation*