Alivecor KardiaMobile and the NHS

[Alan]

Today I went for my 3 month follow-up appointment after my AF ablation surgery. The Kardia device from Alivecor I bought a year ago is well known by members on this site and the traces I took myself and gave to the doctors was very helpful to them as they could never capture my heart in AFib, even with a 48 hour monitor.

I haven't had a single instance of AFib since the procedure but many times when I take my BP my Omron BP monitor indicates an irregular heart beat even though when I check it with the Kardia device it shows up as normal, although I can see that there are delays between some of the beats.

At my visit today I had a full ekg, for the umpteenth time, and it showed normal and my appointment went well. I am now off the blood thinners - yay!
But before I left I handed over a copy of the spreadsheet I keep of daily BP readings and occurrences where irregular heartbeat is indicated. I gave her a printout of one of my Kardia traces and heard the dreaded words, "hmm, that's interesting". She was more concerned that some of the beats were missing an initial "p-wave" so I am scheduled to be fitted with a 24-hr monitor next week for a more detailed look. (It would have been tomorrow but we are going to Edinburgh for a few days visiting family)

I thought others here may be interested in more info on the device and when I Googled it I see that the NHS are adopting it as a cost effective tool in diagnosing irregular heartbeats.


NHS rolls out KardiaMobile to accelerate detection of arrhythmia - PharmaTimes

KardiaMobile could save the NHS an estimated £2 billion by cutting the costs related to diagnosis of AF, not including the longer-term benefits and financial savings of potentially preventing severe and costly AF-related strokes, the company notes.

The device is being rolled out as part of the NHS England-funded NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA), which is delivered in partnership with England’s 15 Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs).

“Using cost-effective technology, the NHS will now be able to identify people with irregular heartbeats quickly and easily. This will save lives,” said Professor Gary Ford, stroke physician and lead on the project for the AHSNs.

 

[braumeister]

It's a great little gadget. My doc was hugely impressed when I showed it to him.

 

[bmcgonig]

Today I went for my 3 month follow-up appointment after my AF ablation surgery. The Kardia device from Alivecor I bought a year ago is well known by members on this site and the traces I took myself and gave to the doctors was very helpful to them as they could never capture my heart in AFib, even with a 48 hour monitor.

I haven't had a single instance of AFib since the procedure but many times when I take my BP my Omron BP monitor indicates an irregular heart beat even though when I check it with the Kardia device it shows up as normal, although I can see that there are delays between some of the beats.

At my visit today I had a full ekg, for the umpteenth time, and it showed normal and my appointment went well. I am now off the blood thinners - yay!
But before I left I handed over a copy of the spreadsheet I keep of daily BP readings and occurrences where irregular heartbeat is indicated. I gave her a printout of one of my Kardia traces and heard the dreaded words, "hmm, that's interesting". She was more concerned that some of the beats were missing an initial "p-wave" so I am scheduled to be fitted with a 24-hr monitor next week for a more detailed look. (It would have been tomorrow but we are going to Edinburgh for a few days visiting family)

I thought others here may be interested in more info on the device and when I Googled it I see that the NHS are adopting it as a cost effective tool in diagnosing irregular heartbeats.


NHS rolls out KardiaMobile to accelerate detection of arrhythmia - PharmaTimes

Good luck Alan. Hope that missing p-wave was an aberration!

 

[Alan]

Good luck Alan. Hope that missing p-wave was an aberration!

Thanks.

Now that I know what I am looking for I have looked at several more traces I saved immediately after the BP monitor had indicated irregular, and they all have some beats missing the p-wave.

Just have to wait now for the 24hr monitor.

 

[Dawg52]

I bought one about 3 weeks ago. I have an appointment with a new cardiologist(original dr let go due to downsizing) next week so figured having a month's worth of data might be good for the visit. I do a check daily and have not had one abnormal reading. In fact I haven't had any other episodes since November 1, 2018. And all ekg's, blood test, stress test and echocardiogram test have been normal. So maybe what I experienced back then(2 episodes of racing heart) was just a passing thing. Who knows.....

Oh yes....my old bp monitor does show an irregular beat like Alan. I probably need a new one. I did the 24 hour monitor a couple of months ago and it was normal.

 

[Dawg52]

This morning I had a consultation with my new cardiologist. He too is a fan of the Kardia Mobile device and said he has a few patients using them. He gave me his email address so I can send him reports when/if I ever have an abnormal reading. Have a follow up in six months telling me to continue staying off caffeine and chocolate. He said it sounds like SVT which is a cousin to AFib.

 

[Alan]

This morning I had a consultation with my new cardiologist. He too is a fan of the Kardia Mobile device and said he has a few patients using them. He gave me his email address so I can send him reports when/if I ever have an abnormal reading. Have a follow up in six months telling me to continue staying off caffeine and chocolate. He said it sounds like SVT which is a cousin to AFib.

Good to hear.

aja888 had his SVT cured by a simple ablation procedure in December.

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f38/effects-of-aging-part-2-a-93864-9.html#post2160988

Had the procedure.
Reported at 6:30 AM to the hospital surgical center to have my SVT ablation performed. At 7:30 AM I was gowned up, had a bunch of wires on my chest and back (after shaving all my hair off), and had an IV in my left arm. Doc and 3 techs did the RF ablation to my heart after inserting two ports in my groin area. Procedure was done while I was 1/2 conscious.

The Doc said he is confident he shut down the area that was causing the uncontrollable heart beat rate. Actually, he said he found an extra circuit in my heart where the signal from my brain ends up.

By 9:30 I was back in recovery and had to lay flat for 4 hours while the veins healed up and the bleeding stopped. Not too bad, just boring.

Went home at 1:00 PM and finally had a good cup of coffee.

DW can wait on me hand and foot until tomorrow when I am supposed to be good as new.

 

[Jerry1]

How does Karelia Mobile work? I read that after a certain time you have to pay in order to keep your history. Is that true? Can it be gotten around by saving to you own computer or emailing the reports to yourself? I would think a history would be one of the benefits of a product like that.

 

[Dawg52]

Good to hear.

aja888 had his SVT cured by a simple ablation procedure in December.

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f38/effects-of-aging-part-2-a-93864-9.html#post2160988

I saw that. This doc was talking in terms of med's but since I have the KM device, he decided to let me see if I can document an episode before going that route. I hope I don't have to do anything costly until medicare kicks in the end of July. Ha. I actually haven't had any other episodes since November 1st last year. Maybe staying off caffeine, choc and limiting alcohol will keep it at bay for a long time.

 

[Alan]

How does Karelia Mobile work? I read that after a certain time you have to pay in order to keep your history. Is that true? Can it be gotten around by saving to you own computer or emailing the reports to yourself? I would think a history would be one of the benefits of a product like that.

The KardiaMobile EKG is a single-channel cardiac event recorder. It consists of a device and app that enables you to record and review electrocardiograms (EKG's) anywhere, anytime. A traditional EKG device uses 12 channels (cables) and can detect a lot more heart conditions than a single channel device. However, the single channel device is very accurate at detecting an irregular heartbeat and very accurate at determining if that irregular heartbeat is atrial fibrillation.

You never have to pay to store history if you are prepared to store it yourself. Each time you use it you can decide to email it or save it as a PDF. You could email it to yourself, but I save each trace to my Google drive, for which I have an app I have on my iPhone, and since my Google drive is also accessible on my laptop I can save the traces onto a hard drive, print them etc.

I also enter the date and time on a spreadsheet of each abnormal trace, and I when I save the PDF I name it with the date so it is easy to find. I can then show the doctor the dates and frequency of the events, print out 1 or 2, and have available many more on my phone via Google drive. On the day of my ablation surgery the doctor asked me when I had the last one and I pulled up the trace on my phone and handed it to him for him to look at. With Google drive you can also choose to save individual files locally on your phone so you don't even need internet access to pull them up.

 

[Alan]

I saw that. This doc was talking in terms of med's but since I have the KM device, he decided to let me see if I can document an episode before going that route. I hope I don't have to do anything costly until medicare kicks in the end of July. Ha. I actually haven't had any other episodes since November 1st last year. Maybe staying off caffeine, choc and limiting alcohol will keep it at bay for a long time.

I would think you won't need to start treatment before July unless the frequency and intensity increased dramatically.

 

[Dawg52]

I would think you won't need to start treatment before July unless the frequency and intensity increased dramatically.

You wouldn't think so but he was close to suggesting it now. If he had.....i would have balked.