This is something along the lines of which I've been thinking about, only my target would be ultrasonic imaging instead of ECG. A USB-connected gizmo to go between a probe and a display device, the latter being anything from a phone through a PC to a head-mounted display (yes, something along the lines of Google's latest toy). While you would still need to buy expensive probes, the processing and display infrastructure would be infinitely more flexible than what is currently available. My first target market would be veterinarian applications but I see no reason why the same design would not be used for human or industrial targets.
There's a less expensive thermal imager in development at http://muoptics.com, so I don't see why the principles can't be applied. Cheaper devices can only mean better health for all.
This is amazing, and it's so frustrating that you have not got all your funding.
I am Male, 38, a geek and overweight. In the last few years started having heart issues and had many 7 day event monitors. However, never managed to capture what my issue was. Each 7 day event monitor cost my medical insurance £3k! (In the UK). I spent hours on google researching and understanding arrhythmia. Most are benign, but not all.
What most people don't know is that an ECG machine or event monitor is all well and good, but for a lot of problems it needs to be attached when you have the incident. I have only had 5 incidents in 3 years. They could be harmless or they cloud kill me, but until you find out what they are its impossible to tell.
If this was on the market I would buy it, anyone that has had heart issues would know how important something like this is to get built and delivered into the market. The problem is, most people won't know they need this until later in life if at all.
Don't give up, please get this to market devices like this will save lives or at the very least reduce anxiety of people going through their first heart health issues to get a diagnosis of the problem.
I too had a reason to wear an event monitor and the things were expensive, silly, poorly thought out and just poorly made. Thousands of dollars for something that has to phone home using a land line?
I asked the doctor why there wasn't something cheaper that did this better. He had no idea. How companies can charge this much for simple devices is beyond me. They aren't that complex...
There is a lot of money in cardiology. Cardiology has a lot of patients that are older and wealthier. Cardiology and cancer get a lot of research grants, because the people who control the purse strings are older, wealthier folks.
Conversely, there is hardly any money in mental illness. Mental illness has a lot of patients that are younger and impoverished.
Anyway, making medical equipment isn't something that's just one step above a breadboard. Have a look at the article again - to get the regulatory stamps, for someone who's willing to sell at zero profit, will take $230k. For one product. Throw a lot of infrastructure around that, and it's easy to see how medical hardware costs a lot. Especially given that it's generally pretty low turnover. Sure, there's a nice amount of fat in there, but you get that in industries with a high barrier to entry.
Oh this reminds of recent startup-conf, where health was(or should I say is) the next big thing. Premium-VC investor on stage was saying that if the product is regulated(=medical device classification) then they are not interested.
It's a highly portable version of a very specialized diagnostic tool.
If you're using the 12-lead by itself, you don't care about portability (as you're in a doctor's office or hospital). A 12-lead on a wheeled cart is just fine.
If you're using the 12-lead in a situation where portability matters (i.e. the back of an ambulance), then you need a lot more than just a 12-lead. You need something like a Lifepack 15, which combines an ECG with all sorts of other monitoring equipment (auto blood pressure cuff, pulseox, capnography, defibrillation capabilities, etc). An LP15 is not cheap (a mid-level version costs _5_ times as much as the last used car I bought), but it does what it does very well, and packs a lot into a small package.
Of all the factors considered by people who purchase things like 12-lead ECGs, price is often well down on that list.
All that being said... Would I buy one for $110? In a heartbeat.
I don't know if the point of this is quite medical. The words "recreational electrocardiograph usage" don't make sense right now -- but they might, given a $110 one you can throw into a junk drawer when you're not using it.
Even more so, the point I liked is about introducing the concept of open sourcing to medical equipment manufacture.
>Fed up with the unreasonably high price, cumbersome design, and dishonest distribution practices of clinical ECG machines, I decided to create mobilECG, a clinical ECG that is different.
Maybe one day we'll see some more open sourced sophisticated equipment, which are not only portable, but also reasonably priced and better designed.
There was an interesting post on Reddit, about a user who used a Raspberry Pi, a heart monitor, and vibrators to create a sex toy that reacted to his wife's arousal. Whether or not it was true, it's an interesting idea.
An ECG is a step beyond that, but I can see it being super cool to play with, and who knows what sort of ideas you could come up with! I know at this price, I'll definitely get one.
Veterinary applications come to mind, because both the portability and the price point are a big issue, and the standard in most situations I've seen is either no ECG or at most 3 leads.
While this device looks awesome and would be really helpful, I don't think the fund raising strategy will work out. Especially not the goal for certification. And without certification, it's essentially useless for human medicine.
What might work is approaching charities eager to develop this device for use in the developing world.
On the contrary, if he only sells to end users, I don't see the need for the long and expensive certification (especially as he is based outside of the USA). This is not intended - I hope - to replace hospital ECG machines, but rather to provide quick insight at home.
I think it would serve the purpose better if he uses this money to make it user friendly and polished.
It seems a little like you guys have the technical skills, but not necessarily the connections necessary to get this going. You should really take the proposal to at least the major heart charities in America, Canada and Britain, and elsewhere in Europe if you have the languages. I also think you should go after big-hitting academic/medical endorsements, in particular I'd make a strong attempt to get in touch with Eric Topol, who is both a cardiologist and interested in this kind of technology. If it's as good as it seems to be, you must surely be able to get this off the ground.
