The Popularity of Wearable ECG Readers

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death in the world and it will increase to 23.3 million by 2030 as reported by the WHO. Among all the deaths caused by CVD, about two-thirds of them happen in out-of-hospital settings.

Cardiovascular health informatics is a rapidly evolving interdisciplinary area dealing with the acquisition, transmission, processing, storage, retrieval, interpretation, and use of the information from the cardiovascular system so as to benefit the early detection, early prediction, early prevention, early diagnosis and early treatment of CVDs.

While the term “wearable technology” gets thrown around a lot in nowadays, it’s important to note that there are several sub-sectors of this increasingly important industry. Wearable sensors hold the promise of early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

Japan-based NTT Data has developed an innovative wearable device in the form of a fabric that when worn, enables measuring of heart rate and electrocardiographic (ECG) waveform in real time, said Srini Koushik, president & CEO, NTT Innovation Institute Inc (NTT I3). He noted also that a spurt in the wearable device front was round the corner and coming soon would be devices that monitor blood sugar and glucose levels in real time.

According to a new report released by Transparency Market Research called, “Wearable Medical Devices Market – Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2013 – 2019,” the global market for wearable medical devices was valued at $2 billion in 2012 and is expected to reach an impressive $5.8 billion in 2019.