Battle of medical gadgets: Comparison of mobile cardiographs from Russia and the USA

The American edition of MedGizmo published a large comparison of mobile cardiographs developed by companies from the USA and Russia — KARDIA from AliveCor and CardioQVARK. We present to your attention an adapted translation of this material.

Description of devices

CardioQVARK is an iPhone case with built-in special sensors — the user must put their fingers on them to take a cardiogram. In turn, KARDIA comes in two versions — a case and a special strap for smart watches, which also have built-in sensors for applying fingers. The developers of both gadgets have also created mobile applications that can be used to send the captured ECG to the attending physician.

In the applications, it is possible to keep a diary — so the doctor can understand what causes changes in the parameters of the heart (“I felt bad after playing sports”) — in KARDIA you can not only keep a written diary, but also leave voice notes.

CardioQVARK currently only works with iPhone 5 (and 5S, 6, 6S and SE) models. KARDIA supports more iOS and Android smartphones. However, the author of the review on MedGizmo shares his experience, according to which the quality of the gadget’s performance varies depending on the smartphone used — for example, it works flawlessly with Samsung KARDIA devices, which cannot be said about the connection with Sony Xperia.

Periodically, the press discusses doubts about the accuracy of measurements made using medical gadgets. However, the author of the material on MedGizmo is convinced that devices like KARDIA must be accurate — otherwise they could not be certified by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Differences CardioQVARK

American journalists considered the main difference between CardioQVARK and the KARDIA project to be a separate iPad application for doctors. This is a full-fledged working tool for a professional physician — it provides more detailed information about a cardiogram taken using a gadget.

The doctor can download the app from the iTunes Store. Below is a screenshot of one of its screens:

Results of work and prospects

The MedGizmo publication has prepared a brief note on the development of the CardioQVARK project — to date, 11,000 cardiograms for 1,300 people have been taken using the gadget. Documents have been submitted for obtaining a certificate of a medical device from Roszdravnadzor, the process of obtaining an Apple MFI certificate is underway.

Already next year, it is planned to create a gadget for Android, as well as enter foreign markets and launch clinical trials in the US and Western Europe.

Despite the fact that at the moment little is known about CardioQVARK to the audience abroad, the author of the article in MedGizmo writes that professionals in the medical industry outside of Russia should also be aware of the existence of the project — it is quite possible that CardioQVARK will be able to occupy a serious niche in this market.

To sum up the results of the battle, we have summarized the characteristics of the devices in one table: