End of Electrocardiogram Cables? How One Patch is Redefining Cardiac Diagnostics

A third of the more than 300 million electrocardiograms (EKGs) conducted annually worldwide are performed in the United States. The technology behind EKGs hasn't changed in decades, despite their extensive use. According to research from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, the accuracy of a recently developed wireless EKG patch is on par with or even higher than that of conventional EKG devices. The EKG Patch Solution was created by MG Medical Products, a Cincinnati-based company.

Its lead author, Richard Becker, MD, professor of medicine, claims that the patch is easier for medical personnel to correctly apply to patients and less likely to display misrepresentations of critical information while reading the electrical activity of the heart.

The study was published in the journal Clinical Research in Cardiology(1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
PATCH (Preferred Attachment Strategy for Optimal Electrocardiograms)-1 Study

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Advantages of Patch Electrocardiograms (EKG) Over Traditional Electrocardiograms System

“It’s easy to use and can consistently be placed on the chest without a complicated learning curve for medical staff,” says Becker, also a cardiologist at UC Health, the university-affiliated health care system.

“We also found that the likelihood of an artifact which is due to one of the leads not being placed correctly or as firmly as it should be was 50% less likely to occur. Having a high-quality EKG is essential to diagnostic accuracy and achieving good health outcomes.”

Becker says Patch EKG has an all-in-one design with built-in lead wires attached to pre-positioned electrodes for easier placement on the chest to eliminate electrode misplacement errors. It was tested in a prospective, single-blind study of 200 heart patients against the standard traditional 12-lead EKG procedure.

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Errors that impacted the interpretability of the EKG were detected in 6.5% of all Patch EKG procedures and 15% of all standard EKG procedures. These occurred primarily because of movement or motion in the patient, explains Becker.

Most participants either preferred the Patch EKG (47%) or did not have a preference with the standard EKG (52%).

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Jeff McGrath, president of MG Medical Products, says the wireless Patch EKG could completely change how an EKG can be performed. McGrath developed the device with his son, Chris McGrath, chief operations officer at MG Medical Products.

“It’s five pounds, you don’t have to wheel the machine in, you don’t have to untangle wires, you don’t have to get people dirty,” explains Jeff McGrath. “You don’t have to have a technical skill to acquire this. People take classes for months to learn how to operate a traditional EKG. You take a class for 20 minutes with this new product to learn how to do an EKG.”

Chris McGrath says wireless EKG patches may be of particular interest to skilled nursing facilities, behavioral health facilities and correctional facilities. The ability to rapidly triage acute cardiac symptoms can help lower hospital readmission rates of individuals cared for in these facilities.

“These are places where the inability to perform an EKG is very costly to them,” Chris McGrath adds.

Reference:

1. PATCH (Preferred Attachment Strategy for Optimal Electrocardiograms)-1 Study- (https:link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00392-024-02572-6)

Source-Eurekalert