This report originally appeared in the January 2010 issue of DOTmed Business News.

EKG or ECG: Which Is Right?
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https://www.dotmed.com/news/story/10971




Cardiac monitoring is a business that keeps pumping along at a regular beat. EKG and holter monitors are essential toolkit technologies for primary care as well as cardiology practices and hospitals.

"Business is pretty steady. EKG is like a stethoscope. Internal medicine and family practice can't get around having one. Even though reimbursement has gone down and they are basically doing it for free these days, they must have it," said John Gladstein, sales manager, Medical Device Depot, Ellicott City, Maryland. His company is a new equipment distributor founded in 2008. They offer EKG and holters from the top manufacturers including Cardiac Science Corporation (the Burdick brand), GE, Midmark, Philips, Swiss maker Schiller and Welch Allyn. "This equipment is important to the standard of care and that keeps the market going," Gladstein said.

"The market is steady with moderate growth. It is a tried and tested business and a first-step modality - so physicians would do a 12-lead ECG and then a holter," said Meera Gopalakrishnan, product manager, ambulatory ECG, Philips Healthcare. "There is a lot of physician confidence in the modality."
Centered


New advancements in these workhorse monitors are mostly geared toward digital innovations that provide connectivity to PCs and electronic records, bringing some high-tech features into nearly any practice setting.

"The trends these days are connected devices with physicians utilizing electronic health records (EHRs). We all know about the stimulus act freeing up money for physicians to get involved with EHRs," said Steve Kenan, Welch Allyn senior category manager for cardiopulmonary. "A big part of utilizing an EHR is utilizing connected devices. So connectivity, being able to transmit data bi-directionally between a device and the EHR, has become the number one topic in the industry."

"We find a lot of cardiology offices have just as sophisticated systems for doing holters as hospitals," said Boyd Campbell, principal, Southeastern Biomedical Associates, Granite Falls, N.C. "Several of our customers have remote sites; some cardiology offices have a half dozen offices networked together. That is different from what we used to call 'sneaker net,'" he reflected. His company, established in 1996, is a distributor for GE Healthcare in the non-hospital market; and for Cardiac Science in the hospital market. "In the past you would take a holter somewhere to be read, then hand-carry results. Now we're able to do it via the internet or a network between remote locations. It speeds the time to get results to the patient," Campbell said.

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