ECGalert - a doctor in your pocket

project ECGalert

Alerting of a heart attack with ECG

timeframe

start date

1 Jan 2016

end date

31 Dec 2017

at a glance

The purpose of this project is to develop a system for early detection and alerting of the onset of a heart attack. The system consists of a wireless and mobile ECG biosensor, a data center, smartphone and web applications, and a remote 24h health care.

The motivation arises from the latest statistics by the Macedonian Institute of Public Health that in 2014 more than 11,000 people died of cardiovascular diseases, amounting to 57.2% of the total mortality rate. Additionally, because of dynamic and stressful lifestyle, recently the age limit for incidences of cardiac arrests has shifted from people aged 65 to people aged 40 or older.

The scientific basis for this project is founded on the fact that a heart attack can be detected at least two hours before its onset, and that a timely medical attention can dramatically reduce the risk of death or serious tissue damage.

problem

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death globally - they cause more deaths than all other causes together and affect most low- and middle-income countries. In 2014 in Macedonia, a total of 11,270 people died prematurely of diseases of the cardiovascular system, which is 57.2% of the total mortality number¹.

Within the cardiovascular diseases, a heart attack is a serious medical emergency, which occurs when blood flow (and oxygen supply) stops to a part of the heart. If impaired blood flow to the heart lasts long enough, it triggers a process called an ischemic cascade - the heart cells die (mainly by necrosis followed by apoptosis) and do not grow back. A timely medical attention, however, may save the patient of premature death, and drastically reduce the risk of serious damage to the heart. Interestingly, studies show that a heart attack may be predicted a couple of hours before its onset by detecting changes in the Electrocardiogram (ECG) of the patient². This, indeed, is the starting point and the motivation for our innovation, since a quick reaction may save the patient and avoid serious damage of the heart³.

Even though there is much research on the subject of early prediction of heart attacks, still in Macedonia there is no commercialized solution to this problem. With this project, we propose an innovative solution for early warning and quick medical attention in case of a heart attack, by introducing a new product (sensor and smartphone application), and a new service (medical care as a service) to patients with heart disease.

¹Institute of Public Health of Republic of Macedonia, release on the occasion of 29th September - World Heart Day, http://iph.mk/en/september-29-world-heart-day/
²Lewine H., New test may speed detection of heart attacks, Harvard Health Publications, http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/new-test-may-speed-detection-of-heart-attacks-201208155166
³Leijdekkers, P. and Gay, V. "A self-test to detect a heart attack using a mobile phone and wearable sensors." Computer-Based Medical Systems, 2008. CBMS'08. 21st IEEE International Symposium on. IEEE, 2008.

approach

The system consists of attaching a small portable wireless ECG biosensor on the patient’s body and installing an application on the patient’s smartphone that receives ECG signals from the sensor, passes them to the data center, which in turn, processes them and determines if there’s any abnormal heart activity. In case of a detected onset of a heart attack, doctors are notified by the system and may call the patient with instructions and medical advice. Additionally, 24h medical care service centers are notified by the system to send an ambulance on the location given by the patient’s smartphone. This timely medical attention may save a patient’s life.

workplan

Phase 1

Requirements specification & system design

This phase includes 1) detailed analysis of user requirements; 2) analysis of potential ECG biosensors; 3) architecture design of the software solution for the mobile application; and 4) design of the alert system and cloud computing solution for organising a 24h health care.

time frame:

Month 1 - Month 8

Phase 2

Development of smartphone applications

This phase contains research and development of the mobile application under Android and iOS platforms. We plan: 1) development of an application architecture with details on communication in the personal network and WiFi; and 2) application coding and initial testing.

time frame:

Month 9 - Month 16

Phase 3

Development of web application on cloud

This phase is based on research and development of the veb application and cloud computing solution for 24h health care based on early alerting system. We plan: 1) development of a scalable application and hardware cloud computing platform; and 2) coding and testing the web application and services.

time frame:

Month 9 - Month 16

Phase 4

Interface design and testing

This phase consists of interface design (human computer interaction) and front-end programming. The sensors and applications must be intinuitive and easy to use. For this purpose, all applications and sensors will be tested and verified in a real-life testing environment. We plan to collaborate wth cardiovascular clinics and hospitals and introduce the application to prospective end-users (patients).

time frame:

Month 9 - Month 16

Phase 5

Demonstration, sustainability and quality control

This phase includes a demonstration of the realized prototype in real-life environment. In addition, it involves activities to enable sustainability of the developed solution and quality control of the mobile and web applications. We will improve the product and service organisation based on patient’s feedback from the testing and quality control procedure results.

time frame:

Month 17 - Month 24

Phase 6

Validation, verification and initial promotion

This phase realizes the final technology readiness stage prior to market. It includes: validation and verification of the prototype. Concerning marketing, we plan establishing several initial promotion channels and campaigns to raise the patient’s awareness about the product’s existence.

time frame:

Month 17 - Month 24

project team

Innovation Dooel is an IT company that specializes in developing highly adaptable, flexible, and scalable software solutions, aimed at offering a simple and easy way for a company to organize and manage its business. The company was established in 2006 as a spin-off from the Laboratory for New and Innovative Technologies at the University in Skopje. Innovation is the regional leader in the implementation of elections reconciliation; registration of voters and voters list management software for the central election commissions with references in numerous successful projects in the Balkan region including Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania.

news

20 Nov 2017

Seal of Excellence awarded to ECGalert for the second time!

ECGalert has been awarded Seal of Excellence as a high-quality project proposal in a highly competitive evaluation process for H2020-SME (inst-06-2016-2017).

Seal of Excellence

21 Sep 2017

Presentation of scientific paper "A Time-Critical Mobile Application based on ECG Medical Monitoring" on BCI 2017 - 8th Balkan Conf. in Informatics, Skopje, Macedonia

Innovation’s team participated on BCI 2017 - 8th Balkan Conf. in Informatics, held in Skopje, Macedonia. Innovation presented a paper titled "A Time-Critical Mobile Application based on ECG Medical Monitoring".

21 Sep 2017

Presentation of scientific paper "ECGalert: A Heart Attack Alerting System" on ICT Innovations 2017, Skopje, Macedonia

Innovation’s team participated on the 40th MIPRO International Convention, held in Opatija, Croatia. Innovation presented a paper titled "Improved Improved pipelined wavelet implementation for filtering ECG signals".

15 Aug 2017

Scientific paper "Improved Improved pipelined wavelet implementation for filtering ECG signals" published in journal

07 Jul 2017

Presentation of scientific paper "State-Of-The-Art of Cloud Solutions Based on ECG Sensors" on EuroCon 2017, Ohrid, Macedonia

Innovation’s team participated on EuroCon, held in Ohrid, Macedonia. Innovation presented a paper titled "State-Of-The-Art of Cloud Solutions Based on ECG Sensors".

15 Jun 2017

Seal of Excellence awarded to ECGalert

ECGalert has been awarded Seal of Excellence as a high-quality project proposal in a highly competitive evaluation process for H2020-SME (inst-06-2016-2017).

Seal of Excellence

25 May 2017

Presentation of scientific paper "SaaS Solution for ECG Monitoring Expert System" on MIPRO 2017, Opatija, Croatia

Innovation’s team participated on the 40th MIPRO International Convention, held in Opatija, Croatia. Innovation presented a paper titled "SaaS Solution for ECG Monitoring Expert System".

25 May 2017

Presentation of scientific paper "Parallelization of Digital Wavelet Transformation of ECG Signals" on MIPRO 2017, Opatija, Croatia

Innovation’s team participated on the 40th MIPRO International Convention, held in Opatija, Croatia. Innovation presented a paper titled "Parallelization of Digital Wavelet Transformation of ECG Signals".

24 May 2017

Presentation of scientific paper "A Dew Computing Solution for IoT Streaming Devices" on MIPRO 2017, Opatija, Croatia

Innovation’s team participated on the 40th MIPRO International Convention, held in Opatija, Croatia. Innovation presented a paper titled "A Dew Computing Solution for IoT Streaming Devices".

07 May 2017

Monitoring ECG at Skopje's 2017 Marathon

Skopje’s marathon this year is unlike any other in history. For the very first time, 20 lucky volunteers will be using the latest ECG technology to monitor their hearts while running.

15 Dec 2016

Scientific paper "Challenges for development of an ECG m-Health solution" published in journal

Innovation’s team published a paper "Challenges for development of an ECG m-Health solution" in the journal Emerging Research and Solutions in ICT, http://www.ersict.org/, DOI:10.20544/ERSICT, vol.1, no.2, pp.25-38.

22 Nov 2016

Presentation of scientific paper "Distribution of Premature heartbeats" on TELFOR 2016, Belgrade, Serbia

Innovation’s team participated on the 24th Telecommunications Forum (TELFOR), held in Belgrade, Serbia. Innovation presented a paper on distribution of premature heartbeats. These findings are implemented in ECGalert, a product still in development phase.

29 Oct 2016

Presentation of scientific paper "Optimizing High-Performance CUDA DSP Filter for ECG signals" on DAAAM International Symposium

Innovation’s team participated on the 27th DAAAM International Symposium, held in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Innovation presented a paper on optimizing high-performance CUDA DSP filter for ECG signals. This filter is implemented in ECGalert, a product still in development phase.

04 Oct 2016

Innovation becomes UNCAP associated partner

Innovation becomes an associate partner to the UNCAP (“Ubiquitous iNteroperable Care for Ageing People “) consortium with the goal to integrate streaming ECG sensor data with the UNCAP platform. Innovation will add a value to the UNCAP project by delivering its expertise and knowledge for developing healthcare services based on the ECG data sensors. Also, Innovation will be testing the interoperability of the UNCAP platform (and third parties).

06 Sep 2016

Presentation of scientific paper "Performance evaluation of FIR and IIR filtering of ECG signals" on ICT Innovations 2016, Ohrid, Macedonia

Innovation’s team participated on the 8th ICT Innovations, held in Ohrid, Macedonia. Innovation presented a paper on performance evaluation of FIR and IIR filtering of ECG signals. These filters are implemented in ECGalert, a product still in development phase.

06 Sep 2016

Presentation of scientific paper "Pattern Recognition of a Digital ECG" on ICT Innovations 2016, Ohrid, Macedonia

Innovation’s team participated on the 8th ICT Innovations, held in Ohrid, Macedonia. Innovation presented a paper on pattern recognition of a digital ECG. These algorithms are implemented in ECGalert, a product still in development phase.

25 Jul 2016

ECGalert on national TV

21 Jun 2016

ECGalert at eHealth Summit and Expo, Dublin

ECGalert participated on the UNCAP (“Ubiquitous iNteroperable Care for Ageing People“) eHealth Summit and Expo, held in Dublin, with presentation and showcase.

04 Jun 2016

Presentation of scientific paper "CUDA DSP Filter for ECG Signals" on AiiT, Bitola, Macedonia

Innovation’s team participated on the International conference on Applied Internet and Information Technologies (AiiT), held in Bitola, Macedonia. Innovation presented a paper on CUDA DSP filters, used in feature extraction on ECG signals. These filters are implemented in ECGalert, a product still in development phase.

04 Jun 2016

Presentation of scientific paper "A Mobile Application for ECG detection and feature extraction" on AiiT, Bitola, Macedonia

Innovation’s team participated on the International conference on Applied Internet and Information Technologies (AiiT), held in Bitola, Macedonia. Innovation presented a paper about ECGalert - a mobile application for ECG detection. More specifically, the paper discusses the architecture of the application which is still in development phase.

30 May 2016

Presentaion of scientific paper "A Medical Cloud" at MIPRO 2016, Opatija, Croatia

Innovation’s team participated on the 39 th International Convention on Information and Communication Technology, Electronics and Microelectronics, MIPRO 2016, held in Opatija, Croatia. Here Innovation presented a medical cloud solution, such as ECGalert, a product still in development phase.

30 May 2016

Presentation of scientific paper "Visualization in the ECG QRS Detection Algorithms" at MIPRO 2016, Opatija, Croatia

Innovation’s team participated on the 39 th International Convention on Information and Communication Technology, Electronics and Microelectronics, MIPRO 2016, held in Opatija, Croatia. Here Innovation presented a solution for visualization of QRS-detection algorithms in ECG signals. This visualization is used in ECGalert, a software for early heart-attack detecion.

12 May 2016

ECGalert on the 3rd FutureComNet workshop in Skopje

The development team of Innovation participated on the 3 rd Telecomunication Workshop FutureComNet 2016, held in Skopje. The workshop aims to bring together all relevant individuals from academia, industry, telecom providers, companies and regulatory bodies in the broad area of telecommunications. Innovation presented the software ECGalert, which is still in development phase. ECGalert is a smart-phone application and cloud solution, which uses a mobile sensor to periodically measure ECG and heart activity, in order to predict risk of heart attack.

22 Apr 2016

Presentaion of scientific paper "Dataflow DSP Filter for ECG Signals" on CiiT 2016, Bitola, Macedonia

Innovation’s development team participated on the 13 th International Conference on Informatics and Information Technologies, held in Hotel Molika, Bitola. On the conference, Innovation presented a scientific paper on parallelization and filtering of ECG signals. These algorithms are implemented in ECGalert, a software for early heart-attack detection that we develop.

06 Apr 2016

ECGalert will be tested on patients of “Filip Vtori” clinic in Skopje

The development team of Innovation presented the ECGalert software for early detection of heart attack, to the team of the specialized clinic for cardio-vascular dieseases “Filip Vtori” in Skopje. On the meeting, several software implementaion specifics were concluded. Moreover, details regarding software testing on end-users (patients at the clinic) were discussed. More information is expected to be released following the next meetings.

30 Dec 2015

Contract signed! Innovation will develop a heart monitoring software

On 30.12.2015, a development team of Innovation, along with the experts from the Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, attended the contract signing between the Fund of Innovations and Technology Development and the 17 companies that were awarded with grants: 10 companies were chosen for the call for newly established enterprises ‘start-up’ and ‘spin-off’ grants, while the other 7 for the call for co-financed grants and conditional loans for commercialization of innovations. Besides the formal signing, all the 17 companies had the opportunity to give a short presentation on their projects. After the projects’ presentation, the employees of the companies that got the support from the Fund, together with the Fund’s representatives, attended a small after party and congratulated each other for the success. It was a nice foreteller of the prosperous year to come.

10 Dec 2015

ECGalert is co-funded by Fund for Innovations and Terchnology Development

The selection of projects that had responded to the call for co-financed grants and conditional loans for commercialization of innovations has been made public, and Innovation’s ECGalert made it to the list. Innovation will be receiving funding for the future work invested in ECGalert in a period of two years, with an optional third year of funding. According to the Fund, the following criteria were taken into consideration: level of innovativeness, project quality, capacity of the project team and market potential. This announcement states for the potential of ECGalert and the impact it is ought to make in the sphere of sociological and scientific influence. The R&D team of Innovation is looking forward to successful collaboration with the Fund for Innovations and Technology Development.