St Jude Medical announces European launch of remote cardiac care
network
5 September 2009
St Jude Medical, Inc. (NYSE:STJ) has announced the European launch of
the next generation Merlin.net Patient Care Network (PCN), a secure,
Internet-based remote care system for patients with implanted medical
devices.
Merlin.net PCN gathers and stores data from the implant procedure,
in-clinic follow-up visits and from remote transmissions sent from a
patient’s home. Remote transmissions can include both patient-initiated
and automatic follow-ups and monitoring transmissions sent via a
Merlin@home remote transmitter.
In addition to giving physicians more timely access to important
patient and device data, the wireless monitoring system also allows
physicians to compile a more complete patient record by easily
transferring cardiac device data into electronic health record (EHR)
systems.
The newest version of Merlin.net PCN, version 4.0, supports all
radio-frequency (RF) St Jude Medical implantable cardioverter
defibrillators (ICDs), non-RF Epic ICDs, Atlas ICDs, Current ICDs and
Promote CRT-D devices, and now also supports the Accent RF pacemaker and
Anthem RF CRT-P (cardiac resynchronization therapy pacemaker).
The Accent RF and Anthem RF product families use radio frequency (RF)
telemetry that enables secure, wireless communication between the
implanted device and the device programmer or Merlin@home transmitter.
The remote monitoring capabilities of these devices, facilitated by
the Merlin.net PCN, permit automated hands-free follow-up, and daily
device safety checks with no patient interaction required.
“Remote monitoring of ICDs has been an important development in the
management of patients. Systems like the Merlin.net PCN allow us to
monitor patients’ cardiac conditions more closely, and our patients and
our staff find remote monitoring convenient and time-saving,” said Dr.
Chris Plummer, Consultant Cardiologist at Freeman Hospital, Newcastle,
UK.
“Being able to wirelessly download data from a St Jude Medical Accent
RF pacemaker confirms the optimal performance of both the pacemaker and
the Merlin.net PCN. We look forward to extending the advantages of
remote monitoring to more of our pacemaker patients.”
The latest version of the Merlin.net PCN also features the
DirectTrend Viewer reporting capability, which can be used to enhance
visibility into patient trends to simplify patient management and
enhance clinical insight. The DirectTrend Viewer reporting feature
allows physicians to track data over time related to clinical events,
alerts, and recent transmissions.
“Our focus with this next-generation system continues to be on giving
physicians timely, actionable data, and improving disease management,”
said Eric S Fain, MD, president of the St Jude Medical Cardiac Rhythm
Management Division. “Adding the DirectTrend Viewer Reporting feature
helps improve the speed at which physicians receive and can interpret
information, so they can effectively manage their patients’ conditions.”
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