Case Study: Cardiosoft ECG - Bicester Health Centre

GE CardioSoft PC Based 12 Lead Resting ECG System

Dr Robin Fox, GP

“A giant leap forward in the recording of ECG’s in primary care”

Traditional paper based ECG machines whilst very useful, suffer from a number of drawbacks. ECGs get lost, once scanned into the computer they tend to be of poorer quality and it can be difficult for cardiology colleagues to give an opinion from a poor quality scanned image.

The CardioSoft ECG machine from Numed Healthcare is very small and can hang neatly on a wall or be put away in the cupboard, thus creating space by dispensing with a large ECG machine. The leads can be individually detached should a replacement ever be required.

Recording an ECG is very simple and our Nurses and Health Care Assistants have all coped with the change, after very little training. The system usefully identifies in advance if there is a poor lead contact and the ECG trace is shown in real time prior to being captured. This allows problems with lead contact to be identified prior to being entered into the notes The ECG seamlessly integrates with our GP software (InPS Vision) and is recorded in the patient’s notes as a clear PDF file. This means we have a high quality ECG trace permanently recorded in the patient record and this can be sent to a third party including Choose and Book referrals if required.

The ECG software very usefully routinely records accurate PR, QRS and QTc intervals and the interpretive software appears highly sensitive although sometimes at the expense of some false positives. This could potentially be useful should an ECG be recorded by one of the practice nurses whilst the GP is on the end of a phone.

We believe the CardioSoft ECG system is a giant leap forward in the recording of ECGs in primary care.