Heart sound and electrocardiogram recording devices for telemedicine environments.

There is currently a worldwide trend to bring healthcare services as close as possible to the patient, either through home healthcare systems, or telemedicine. There is thus a general need for equipment that can capture patient data electronically for automated review or analysis by a medical practitioner. This paper presents prototype systems that were developed with the ultimate aim for use in telemedicine settings in rural Africa. These devices can be used to electronically capture data on patients from several sensors in a quick an easy manner. In our presented cases we focus on cardiovascular information. One of the main advantages of the proposed systems is that the data are captured simultaneously from multiple sensors. The data can be stored and sent electronically for review and analysis, and knowledge-based systems or neural network type models can be used in the future for semi-autonomous screening of the recordings, before a patient is referred to a specialist.