The project for the development of the European ST-T annotated Database originated from a 'Concerted Action' on Ambulatory Monitoring, set up by the European Community in 1985. The goal was to prototype an ECG database for assessing the quality of ambulatory ECG monitoring (AECG) systems. After the 'concerted action', the development of the full database was coordinated by the Institute of Clinical Physiology of the National Research Council (CNR) in Pisa and the Thoraxcenter of Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Thirteen research groups from eight countries provided AECG tapes and annotated beat by beat the selected 2-channel records, each 2 h in duration. ST segment (ST) and T-wave (T) changes were identified and their onset, offset and peak beats annotated in addition to QRSs, beat types, rhythm and signal quality changes. In 1989, the European Society of Cardiology sponsored the remainder of the project. Recently the 90 records were completed and stored on CD-ROM. The records include 372 ST and 423 T changes. In cooperation with the Biomedical Engineering Centre of MIT (developers of the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database), the annotation scheme was revised to be consistent with both MIT-BIH and American Heart Association formats.

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In the past three decades the cardiac catheter has provided ever increasing opportunities for the study of circulatory physiology (1,2). As experience was gained, additional procedures were introduced so that at present all chambers of the heart and most arterial and venous vessels are accessable for study. At the same time technological development of transducers, oximeters, densitometers and X-ray methods kept pace and provided more accurate measurements. With these developments, the collection and handling of reliable data out of the many signals became increasingly complex. The reduction of the raw data to relevant information and the derivation and interpretation of the calculated information became more and more a time-consuming and yet tedious effort.As data compression and complex calculations may be performed more rapidly and accurately by a computer than by the scientist, the introduction of a digital computer in the catheterization laboratory was only a matter of time. Since the original contribution by Henry (3) in 1968, reports have been published (4,5,6,7,8) about the application of the digital computer in the catheterization

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BackgroundThe MEDICOM (Medical Products Electronic Commerce) Portal provides the electronic means for medical-equipment manufacturers to communicate online with their customers while supporting the Purchasing Process and Post Market Surveillance. The Portal offers a powerful Internet-based search tool for finding medical products and manufacturers. Its main advantage is the fast, reliable and up-to-date retrieval of information while eliminating all unrelated content that a general-purpose search engine would retrieve. The Universal Medical Device Nomenclature System (UMDNS) registers all products. The Portal accepts end-user requests and generates a list of results containing text descriptions of devices, UMDNS attribute values, and links to manufacturer Web pages and online catalogues for access to more-detailed information. Device short descriptions are provided by the corresponding manufacturer. The Portal offers technical support for integration of the manufacturers' Web sites with itself. The network of the Portal and the connected manufacturers' sites is called the MEDICOM system.ObjectiveTo establish an environment hosting all the interactions of consumers (health care organizations and professionals) and providers (manufacturers, distributors, and resellers of medical devices).MethodsThe Portal provides the end-user interface, implements system management, and supports database compatibility. The Portal hosts information about the whole MEDICOM system (Common Database) and summarized descriptions of medical devices (Short Description Database); the manufacturers' servers present extended descriptions. The Portal provides end-user profiling and registration, an efficient product-searching mechanism, bulletin boards, links to on-line libraries and standards, on-line information for the MEDICOM system, and special messages or advertisements from manufacturers. Platform independence and interoperability characterize the system design. Relational Database Management Systems are used for the system's databases. The end-user interface is implemented using HTML, Javascript, Java applets, and XML documents. Communication between the Portal and the manufacturers' servers is implemented using a CORBA interface. Remote administration of the Portal is enabled by dynamically-generated HTML interfaces based on XML documents.A representative group of users evaluated the system. The aim of the evaluation was validation of the usability of all of MEDICOM's functionality. The evaluation procedure was based on ISO/IEC 9126 Information technology - Software product evaluation - Quality characteristics and guidelines for their use.ResultsThe overall user evaluation of the MEDICOM system was very positive. The MEDICOM system was characterized as an innovative concept that brings significant added value to medical-equipment commerce.ConclusionsThe eventual benefits of the MEDICOM system are (a) establishment of a worldwide-accessible marketplace between manufacturers and health care professionals that provides up-to-date and hi...