Medtronic Launches App That Communicates with Smartphone-Connected Pacemakers

Medtronic plc announced the launch of its MyCareLink Heart mobile app to support the world’s first and only portfolio of pacemakers that can communicate directly with patients’ smartphones and tablets.
 
Compatible with Medtronic BlueSync technology-enabled pacemakers, the MyCareLink Heart mobile app is designed to securely and wirelessly send device data to the Medtronic CareLink network via smart technology, eliminating the need for a dedicated bedside monitor or other remote monitoring hardware.
 
“For the first time, pacemakers have the ability to communicate securely and directly with technology that patients use every day like smartphones and tablets,” said Aisha Barry, vice president and general manager for the Connectivity & Insights business, which is part of the Cardiac and Vascular Group at Medtronic. “This brings the benefits of remote monitoring seamlessly into patients’ lives, potentially leading to enhanced and more efficient patient engagement with their physicians.”
 
BlueSync technology-enabled pacemakers include the Azure pacemaker and Percepta, Serena, and Solara quadripolar cardiac resynchronization therapy pacemakers (CRT-Ps). Data collected by these devices is encrypted and sent to the CareLink network through the MyCareLink Heart mobile app, providing physicians with timely alerts on clinically-relevant patient events. The app also makes select pacemaker data easily accessible to patients including transmission success history, pacemaker battery information, answers to common questions about living with a pacemaker, and updates on physical activity.
 
“The MyCareLink Heart mobile app is a technological game-changer for people with pacemakers,” said James Allred, M.D., electrophysiologist at Cone Health Medical Group Heartcare in Greensboro, N.C. “The introduction of convenient and secure data transmissions and easy access to information like pacemaker battery life changes how patients track and understand their heart health.”
 
Upgrades to the MyCareLink Heart Mobile app technology will be available to patients’ devices over the lifetime of their BlueSync-enabled devices. Features currently include:
 

• Transmission History: Provides patients with information about transmissions that have been sent to their doctors, as well as confirmation when transmissions are received by physicians.
• Vitals Tracking: Allows patients to record weight, blood pressure and heart rate in the app, and to track these measurements over time to help better understand health status. This information is only stored on their mobile device; it is not sent to the clinic.
• Battery Longevity: Displays the estimated remaining battery life of patients’ Medtronic heart devices enabled with BlueSync technology.
• Symptom Journal: Allows patients to catalog symptomatic events which can be reviewed with their physicians during in-person clinic visits. This information is only stored on their mobile device; it is not sent to the clinic.
• Device Information: Displays device implant date, heart device name, model number and serial number – as well as patients’ clinic information.
• Education: Offers helpful information and common questions about living with a pacemaker.
• Physical Activity: Provides information about patients’ activity levels. The app uses data from patients’ heart devices to create daily, weekly and monthly views of physical activity.

In addition to building the MyCareLink Heart mobile app to deliver unique benefits for patients and clinicians, Medtronic prioritized high-level security design capabilities. The security controls built into BlueSync technology-enabled heart devices and the MyCareLink Heart mobile app include encryption and access restrictions designed to protect the device and data transmissions.
 
In collaboration with leading clinicians, researchers and scientists worldwide, Medtronic offers the broadest range of innovative medical technology for the interventional and surgical treatment of cardiovascular disease and cardiac arrhythmias. Medtronic strives to offer products and services of the highest quality that deliver clinical and economic value to healthcare consumers and providers around the world.