Analysis and postprocessing of ECG or heart rate data from wearable devices beyond the proprietary cloud and app infrastructure of the vendors

BACKGROUND: The impact of medical-grade wearable electrocardiographic (ECG) recording technology is increasing rapidly. A wide range of different portable smartphone-connected ECG and heart rate trackers is available on the market. Smart ECG devices are especially valuable to monitor either supraventricular arrhythmias or prolonged QT intervals to avoid drug-induced life-threatening arrhythmias. However, frequent false alarms or false-positive arrhythmia results from wearable devices are unwanted. Therefore, for clinical evaluation, it should be possible to measure and evaluate the biosignals of the wearables independent of the manufacturer. OBJECTIVE: Unlike radiological devices that do support the universal digital imaging and communications in medicine standard, these medical-grade devices do not yet support a secure standardized exchange pathway between sensors, smartphones/smartwatches, and end services such as cloud storage or universal Web-based application programming interface (API) access. Consequently, postprocessing of recorded ECGs or heart rate interval data requires a whole toolbox of customized software technologies. METHODS/RESULTS: Various methods for measuring and analyzing nonstandardized ECG and heart rate data are proposed, including online measurement of ECG waveforms within a PDF, access to data using manufacturer-specific software development kits, and access to biosignals using modern Web APIs. CONCLUSION: With the appropriate workaround, modern software technologies such as JavaScript and PHP allow health care providers and researchers to easily and instantly access necessary and important signal measurements on demand.