FREE SOFTWARE TO MAKE THE TELEMATIC ECG EXCHANGE POPULAR AMONG PHYSICIANS

Interchange of clinical data, including signals and images, is a well established practice inside the hospital and between general practitioners (GPs) and specialists in healthcare centres. Electrocardiography is one of the most common diagnostic procedures which takes advantage from digitised signal processing and communication. However, this use is not so popular among GPs and can due, in addition to political, ergonomic or technical reasons, also to the lack of tools for an easy management of ECG signals and patient data. According to the findings and recommendations of the OpenECG European project, an experimental test was defined and implemented involving a selected group of GPs, cardiologists and outpatient hospital structure. The goal was to offer the users a friendly network-integrated ECG test procedure based on standard devices and services, like SCP_ECG compliant electrocardiograph and e-mail, plus free downloadable software for ECG signals acquisition, presentation and transmission.