Abbott’s Confirm Rx Implantable Cardiac Monitor Connects to Smartphones, FDA Cleared

The folks at Abbott received FDA clearance for the Confirm Rx implantable cardiac monitoring device that wirelessly connects to the patient’s smartphone. Cardiac recordings pass from the device to the smartphone and then onto the company’s online portal where cardiologists can view the data at any time. By being able to immediately share events with the physician, patients can be diagnosed quicker whether and what kind of cardiac arrhythmias they may have.

The patient simply installs the myMerlin app on their phone and uses Bluetooth to sync to the implant. A schedule is set to move saved data from the device, to the phone, and to the online portal. All the data transfers are encrypted to ensure privacy. If a patient feels that something may be going on with their heart, they can use the app to record the time of the event and symptoms being experienced. That’s pretty convenient, as a separate device is not required to help synchronize the cardiac waveforms to the symptoms, and time that they happen.

A nice additional feature is that the Confirm Rx is conditionally safe, meaning that it can be implanted while the patient receives an MRI scan, as long as certain precautions are taken into account.