Podcast examines transformation in heart health technology

September 29: B-Secur has marked World Heart Day by producing two podcasts which examine the transformation of medical devices and consumer wearables from bulky hospital-based machines and glorified step-counters to cutting edge technology which empowers users to take control of their cardiac health.

The podcast series, Health at Heart sees, B-Secur CTO, Adrian Condon speak in-depth with respected cardiologists, Dr David Steinhaus and Dr Andrew Mitchell.

It comes at a time when cardiovascular disease is the world’s leading cause of death claiming 18.6 million lives each year.

Created by the World Heart Federation, World Heart Day (Sept 29) is held each year to inform people around the globe that CVD, including heart disease and stroke, is the world’s number one killer, and highlights the actions that individuals can take to prevent and control CVD.

While modern medicine and advancements in medical technology are attempting to reduce the yearly death toll, World Heart Day also seeks to educate people that by controlling risk factors such as tobacco use, unhealthy diet and physical inactivity, at least 80% of premature deaths from heart disease and stroke can be avoided.

In the first episode Adrian Condon discusses the advancements in heart health technology with Dr Steinhaus and examines where B-Secur can play a key role in improving patient outcomes.

During his career Dr Steinhaus served for 20 years in cardiology, practiced at Kansas City, Missouri and St. Luke’s Hospital Mid America Heart Institute, where he was chief of cardiology. He then moved to Medtronic, one of the largest medical device companies in the world, where he served for 14 years as medical director and vice president.

In the podcast the respected cardiologist recalls the transformation he has witnessed in heart health technology during his extensive career.

He said: “I remember the second patient I ever fitted with an implantable defibrillator. The patient was doing fine and was actually at the grocery store, pushing along one of those grocery carts. He literally had a cardiac arrest and fell into the grocery cart.

“The device recognized his rhythm problem, shocked him back to normal rhythm, he got up finished his grocery shopping and went home.

“It was so dramatic because this guy would’ve died. There’s just no doubt about it. So, these were tremendously effective devices, even though they were bulky, hard to implant, and didn’t last very long.

“Of course, over the next 30 or 40 years, there’s been a huge improvement in electronics and miniaturization. So now we have a device that’s about 30 CCs, very small and lasts about 12 years.

“It not only shocks the patient out of rhythm, but it has a potential for back-up pacing if the patient’s heart rate is too slow, or also pace terminating these rhythms called ventricular tachycardia without a painful shock. So, it’s incredible, because you can have patients who have episodes of these lethal arrhythmias, and don’t even know they had them.”

Another transformation Dr Steinhaus speaks about is valve management.

He said: “We can actually put a new valve into your heart. It used to be a required open-heart surgery, which is several hours and a two or three month recovery from that open heart surgery. Now we can do this procedure in an hour, and you can go home the next day, feeling perfectly fine. That’s really remarkable.”

Looking to the future Dr Steinhaus predicts a further series of changes in the next 10 years which will dramatically improve heart health. He also pointed to the importance of B-Secur’s  HeartKey® 2.0 software which helps to improve the accuracy of EKG readings by eliminating noise while at the same time offering ease of use.

He said: “B-Secur is evolving into a software company, which can manage very different types of information related to patient conditions and chronic disease management, and then can help physicians help patients learn to live with these and manage their diseases.”

Listen to the Health at Heart podcast here.