St. Mary’s Hospital announces Pilot Project that benefits Pacemaker Patients
Posted Oct 4, 2013 12:50:27 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
St. Mary’s General Hospital has announced plans for a pilot project that explores remote monitoring for pacemaker patients.
President at St. Mary’s, Don Shilton, tells 570 News that they met with their main vendor, Medtronic Carelink Express in July after Medtronic had finished a small scale trial and wanted to bring the technology to a larger audience.
Shilton goes on to say that if successful, every second visit to a clinic can be done remotely, meaning pacemaker patients would only need to come to the pacemaker clinic once every two years instead of every year.
Initially, the remote technology will only be available to those with a Medtronic pacemaker who have been clinically assessed and also have a personal interest.
Plans are in the works to have a device set up in the Guelph area. Pacemaker patients would then be able to visit the location where they would place a small wand on the pacemaker, where information will then be downloaded and the data transferred to St. Mary’s.
Shilton says that if the pilot is successful the goal is to have a number of these locations set up in Waterloo Wellington, which would cut down on travel time for pacemaker patients throughout the Region.
The pilot program will start in early 2014 and if successul, St. Mary’s will be the first hospital in Ontario to broadly offer remote monitoring as an option to pacemaker patients.
