A New Approach to Cardiovascular Screening in Newborn

The aim of this paper is to present the main features of a new approach to cardiovascular screening in newborns. The proposed system is made up of the Recorder and the Analyzer. The former is a medical device able to acquire two channels of pulse oximetry data and lead II from the standard ECG simultaneously. Data transmission to the Analyzer is supported by the Bluetooth standard. The Analyzer is an Android application run in a mobile device to analyze several ECG and plethysmography parameters that allows newborn’s classification as cardiovascular “healthy” and “no healthy”. QRS complexes are detected as the first step to study the cardiac rhythm looking for arrhythmia events. QT interval duration is measured to check if the studied newborn is prone to sudden death. Pulse oximetry values are measure in finger and leg to detect dangerous differences. PWTT index computation offers an indirect estimation of cardiac output; this index is inversely proportional to the cardiac output. A prototype was developed and tested at laboratory level. Results indicate that the developed device is safe according to the IEC 60601-1 standard, and sensitivity in QRS complex detection was 99.36%, enough for the intended use of the proposed system.