Finally: An mHealth Technology that Successfully Tackles Heart Attack

Heart disease remains the #1 leading cause of death in the US and worldwide. Over 60% of these deaths are caused by heart attacks or coronary artery disease in general. There are over 80 million individuals in the US that suffer from a heart condition. Moreover, there are over 8 million people in the US who have survived a heart attack or have been intervened on for a coronary artery disease. Lastly there are about 800,000 heart attacks in the US every year.

One of the most important factors in determining the medical outcome of a heart attack is the patient’s response time (i.e. how long it takes to get treatment). Every hour of delay increases the patient’s likelihood of death by well over 10%. If the patient does survive, there is a risk of serious damage to the heart muscle– a quality of life issue. When it comes to a heart attack, “time is cardiac muscle.” Yet an average time between a chest pain patient feeling the first symptoms and their arrival to a medical institution is close to 3 hours! Yes, almost 3 hours. How do we explain this fact? The short answer is: human nature. Very often the pain associated with a heart attack is initially ignored by the patient: denial takes many forms such as the chest pain being attributed to indigestion, being tired etc. or generally adopting a “it will go away” attitude.

Cardiac patients do need timely, quality advice as to how to proceed when they experience cardiac symptoms resembling those of a heart attack. Yet, until now there was no credible user-friendly mHealth technology that tackles this problem successfully. Sure there are many single lead ECG technologies out there including Apple Watch but their reach is only a single kind of arrhythmia (Afib) that is relatively uncommon. They all specify in their instructions, and per their FDA approval conditions, that they cannot detect a heart attack.

HeartBeam’s iCardiologist ? is an entirely new mHealth product offering real time detection of heart attack (as well arrhythmias, including the Afib). HeartBeam’s  solution will provide patients with a high-quality advice on how to proceed if they experience chest pain. Our studies, designed by a Harvard Medical School Faculty, have shown that the quality (accuracy) of that advice to the patient that is outside of a medical facility is equal or better than that of a panel of 3 world class cardiologists. Yes, a credit card sized device that can be easily with you 24/7 and an expert diagnostic system in the cloud are providing you with an advice that as good as a panel of cardiologist reading your 12 lead ECG and examining your chest pain symptoms. Significance? Huge, as now the individuals who carry HeartBeam iCardiologist device in their wallet  will be able to get an instant advice and rush to a hospital on the first signs of a heart attack. Morbidity rate will significantly go down and so will incidence of heart failure for individuals who will have access to iCardiologist. 

Once approved by the FDA our technology will make a huge difference in the quality of life in the high-risk population by reducing fear and anxiety. HeartBeam believes that this community will quickly embrace the iCardiologist technology. HeartBeam is raising, with the help of our RedCrow campaign, a $1.2M round to accelerate FDA submission work. For more information about us please visit https://bit.ly/HeartBeamCampaign