AUSTIN (KXAN) — Doctors with St. David’s Medical Center are studying wearable technology to detect A-FIB, or atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat that can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure and other heart-related complications.
“It’s a one-stop shop that includes everything we want to treat patients with atrial fibrillation,” said Dr. Andrea Natale, executive medical director and electrophysiologist at the Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia Institute at St. David’s.
The RFMx digital monitoring platform uses an app that patients can wear.
The patient’s medical history is entered into the app and alerts the patient and doctors at the same time of any irregularities.
“You intervene immediately as soon as there is a problem, so this is really the real benefit of real-time interaction with the patient,” Dr. Natale explained.
Doctors can text or call the patient with medical advice while the app tracks whether or not the person is following the doctor’s orders.
“We can really follow the patient remotely outside of the four walls of our office,” said Dr. Natale.
40 people are part of the Austin study. Dr. Natale says he is already seeing positive results.
“I think they feel more comfortable that somebody is watching over them constantly, not just when they talk to us or see us in the office, but ongoing monitoring that makes them feel they’re getting good care,” he said.
