REDUCING FALSE ALARMS IN IMPLANTABLE DEFIBRILLATORS

Sigpro algorithm improvements dramatically reduced the false alarm rates of ventricular fibrillation for a leading implantable defibrillator manufacturer, thereby decreasing unnecessary patient treatments and increasing survival rates.

Customer Requirement
Reduce the rate of incorrect detection of ventricular fibrillation in customer's line of implantable defibrillator products. These false alarms triggered unnecessary treatment, which caused serious trauma in otherwise healthy patients. Algorithm improvements must be practical to implement in legacy systems with 16-bit microprocessors.

Sigpro Approach

• Supplement, not replace, existing rate-based algorithms with morphological signature methods to improve product line, including current patient devices.
  
  
• Design scalable algorithms that maximize the use of processing elements (CPU, clock speed, memory).
  
  
• Test performance on data collected from patient populations.

Key Results:

• Scalable software algorithms were designed, analyzed, and tested.
  
  
• Significant improvements to existing methods were proven, using even minimal morphological processing.
  
  
• Algorithms incorporated into next generation devices: company became market leader in its field and was subsequently bought by a major medical device company.