March 17, 2006
Patient's heart on hotline to doctor
A Victorian man, Malcolm Lacey, yesterday became the first Australian to receive a heart implant called a defibrillator that communicates with his doctor's mobile phone, reports The Sydney Morning Herald via Smart Mobs.
"The technology will allow his doctor to receive regular updates about his heart rhythms and to be alerted when something is wrong.
Each night patients get settled and the implant uploads information about their heart to a transmitter. The data is then beamed to a computer, which processes the information and sends it to the cardiologist, via the internet, text message or fax.
The device, already in the chests of 30,000 Europeans and Americans, means doctors can monitor their heart patients from the comfort of their own home - regardless of where the patient happens to be in the world."
The Permanent Link to this page is: http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2006/03/011841.htm