December 21, 2010 – A new service has been launched that provides 24-hour, Web-based remote monitoring follow-up services for patients with pacemakers. The service, from Philips, is the first large-scale service of its kind in the United States.
It was made available to cardiology services as a beta version in August.
Pacemakers are a critical part of treatment for patients with a wide range of heart conditions, and they must be checked frequently to ensure proper function. Scientific data has demonstrated remote monitoring allows earlier detection of patient issues than standard in-clinic follow up.
Philips technicians review, summarize and triage each pacemaker test and provide clinically appropriate, customized notification to support timely and informed patient management for the physicians.
“With the Philips Web-based remote monitoring service, we can do more with less. We get more frequent clinical information without using staff resources, allowing our staff to re-focus their time on other billable services. And, the service has helped us improve our billing processes,” said Syed Samee, M.D., FACC, cardiologist, Blessing Physician Services, Quincy, Ill. “Patients like it, too, because they don’t have to make as many office visits.”
The team of Philips-certified cardiographic technicians undergoes intensive training and averages more than 15 years of experience in pacemaker and implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) follow-up. The technicians analyze and interpret more than 1,000 pacemaker transmissions per day, which enables them to spot even subtle abnormalities. This keen analysis resulted in a .009 percent error rate over the past year. And with 24/7 surveillance, the cardiologists are alerted to critical patient data in real-time, without having to be on-call.
For more information: www.philips.com
May 04, 2020 
