BIOTRONIK Home Monitoring®
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Cardiac Rhythm Management BIOTRONIK Home Monitoring Patient Information Your heart is safe with us BIOTRONIK Home Monitoring® - Your heart's link to your physician

BIOTRONIK Home Monitoring® www.biotronik.com

Messages Straight from the Heart: Technology That Makes Sense 07 What Is Home Monitoring? 09 Why Would I Need Home Monitoring? 11 How Does Home Monitoring Work? 14 Your Direct Connection to the Doctor 16 Studies Confirm the Benefits of Home Monitoring 17 Where Does Home Monitoring Work? 19 How Can Home Monitoring Help My Doctor Provide Even Better Care? 22 How Does My Doctor Use Home Monitoring? 25 What Is Everyday Life Like with the CardioMessenger? 31 Where Should I Set Up My CardioMessenger? 33 Do I Need to Recharge My Mobile CardioMessenger? 34 Do I Need to Recharge My Bedside...

Introduction Millions of people all over the world have an implanted pacemaker, defibrillator, or cardiac resynchronization device. If you are one of these people, or if you are about to have such a device implanted, you probably have a lot of questions and concerns. You may already know that you will have to see your physician regularly, probably two, three or more times a year to check on the device. But what if something changes between check-ups? That is why we want to introduce you to an exciting technology that changes the relationship between you, your doctor, and your heart. It’s...

Messages Straight from the Heart Technology That Makes Sense BIOTRONIK has created a revolutionary new system that allows your pacemaker, defibrillator or cardiac resynchronization device to connect to the cell phone network or landline in such a way that it can communicate directly with your physician. That’s right – your implanted device can communicate directly with the clinic, sending up-to-the-minute information about your heart and your device to the doctor’s office. It’s called Home Monitoring: and the best part about it is that it works automatically. While there are some ways you...

What is Home Monitoring? Home Monitoring is a system that allows your implanted BIOTRONIK cardiac device to communicate directly to your physician — automatically. Take the following examples – wouldn’t it be ideal if your doctor was informed immediately if one of the following were to occur? Home Monitoring works together with a small device called the CardioMessenger. The CardioMessenger is about the size of a large cell phone and is meant to be carried with you on your belt, in your purse, or in your pocket (not the breast pocket). Its similarity to a cell phone is very appropriate —...

Why Would I Need Home Monitoring? Home Monitoring keeps your doctor informed about what's going on with your heart, your implanted device, and how they are interacting. Your implanted defibrillator has to deliver therapy •••>• The battery in your pacemaker is getting low The insulated wires used by the implanted device are performing With an ordinary implanted device, your doctor may not know about such things until the next time you come into the clinic. With Home Monitoring, the physician receives information at regular intervals. Most of that information will be good news: Your heart is...

Why Would I Need Home Monitoring? Home Monitoring Advantages Most of the time, such reports just confirm that you and your device are doing fine. But isn’t it comforting to know that if anything even seems a bit out of the ordinary, Home Monitoring will report it to your physician right away? Home Monitoring will monitor your implanted device constantly, automatically, and around the clock Home Monitoring notifies your doctor about concerns regarding your heart, your device, or how you and your device are interacting Home Monitoring can also be used by your physician to help monitor your...

How Does Home Monitoring Work? If you have or are about to receive a pacemaker, defibrillator or cardiac resynchronization therapy device from BIOTRONIK with Home Monitoring, congratulations! You have access to the world’s most advanced system of device-physician communication. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Here’s how it works: 1. Your BIOTRONIK device with Home Monitoring has a tiny antenna built into the device. At regular intervals, the device sends out reports about how it is functioning and what your heart is doing. Most of the time, these reports confirm normal activity. If something unusual occurs,...

2. The CardioMessenger (stationary communicator) is the device that sits on your bedside table or that you carry with you during the day (mobile communicator). It picks up the messages sent out by your implanted device at regular nightly intervals, or when some unusual event takes place. 3. The CardioMessenger receives the message and forwards it, via the telephone network, to a service center at BIOTRONIK. (In case you are interested in the technical process, the data are transmitted as an encrypted medical message in SMS (Short Message Service) format and are forwarded via the GSM network...

Your Direct Connection to the Doctor Home Monitoring information comes to your doctor in the form of a CardioReport, which he or she can view on the secure website. Many physicians set up the Home Monitoring system like this: The daily reports contain data that can be summarised in order to create detailed reports on how your heart and implanted device are functioning over time. Physicians call these reports “trend data”. Trend data can be very important in assessing your progress or fine-tuning your therapy. If you ever experience a sudden change in your heart function, your implanted...

Studies Confirm the Benefits of Home Monitoring Although Home Monitoring is a recent development, it has already been the subject of numerous clinical studies. The first such study was published in 2002 and demonstrated that Home Monitoring worked safely and reliably.1 This study also showed that for patients with heart failure, using Home Monitoring actually decreased their risk of having to go back to the hospital and improved their overall quality of care. A recent clinical study presented at the American Heart Association in 2008 found that Home Monitoring could safely decrease the...