The iStat by Abbott
The iStat is a pretty amazing step forward in decreasing the
time to take blood tests to diagnose AMIs. With a troponin
cartridge, EMTs are able to measure the amount of the biomarker considered to be a gold standard in evaluating heart attacks. Utilizing the new high-sensitivity troponin I assay, the iStat is able to take quantitative measurements that give a window into the state of a patient's cardiac muscle within ten minutes, without leaving the patient’s side.
Unfortunately, this is not enough. Due to the tactile adeptness and required risk of harm associated with both obtaining and analyzing samples and preparing them for measurement, a patient should never and would never be able to safely obtain a reading on their own, especially if suffering an AMI at the time.
While bringing troponin measurements to the POC is beyond fantastic for healthcare professionals and patients, the fact that the measurements cannot be taken before healthcare professionals (HPs) arrive on the scene wastes precious time in attaining a first troponin reading, especially when considering the importance of serial troponin measurements.
The Kardiamobile by AliveCor
The Kardiamobile by AliveCor brings cardiac diagnostics home in a very user centered way. By utilizing recent AliveCor’s proprietary technology that converts electrical impulses from user’s fingertips into ultrasound signals transmitted to the mobile
device’s microphone.
Portable and effective, the Kardiamobile can fit in your pocket and be used to record heart rhythms virtually anywhere, providing instant analysis for monitoring pathologies of all sorts, including Atrial Fibrillation, Bradycardia, and Tachycardia with an easy-to-understand app. The technology provides a lot of value when it comes to maintaining cardiac health, but when it comes to reliably diagnosing heart attacks, the Kardiamobile falls short: lots of heart attacks don’t present with an electrical signal recognized as an AMI (STEMI). In fact, the Kardiamo- bile is not cleared by the FDA to diagnose a heart attack.