Accent RF, Anthem RF CTR-P Offer Wireless Patient Followups

St. Jude Medical offers the Accent RF pacemaker and Anthem RF CRT-P (cardiac resynchronization therapy pacemaker), which both allow wireless, remote patient follow ups and alerts through the Merlin.net Patient Care Network (PCN).

The Accent and Anthem product family features RF telemetry that enables secure, wireless communication between the implanted device and the programmer used by the clinician or a home monitor, making it the first integrated system of pacing devices with wireless telemetry from implant through follow-up. Wireless communication is used when clinicians implant the device and during follow-up appointments, which can be performed in the clinic or via remote monitoring from the patient’s home.

Patient device follow-up can be scheduled to take place automatically, in a hands-free manner, with no patient interaction required. Information from the device is then captured by the Merlin@home transmitter, and becomes available for viewing by the clinician via Merlin.net PCN. In addition to fast access to device data, Merlin.net PCN also allows physicians to compile a more complete patient record, by easily transferring cardiac device data into electronic health records (EHRs), the company said.

Both devices were approved by the FDA in July 2009.

For more information: www.sjm.com