St Paul, MN - The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted market approval for a remote patient-monitoring system, which allows physicians to instantly communicate with their implanted cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) patients, even if the two are miles apart, St Jude Medical announced.

The company's Housecall Plus^TM system enables a physician to monitor transmissions in real time, in contrast to other remote ICD-monitoring systems, which allow only the review of stored data. The transmitter on the patient side, the size of an answering machine, connects to a telephone line and an electrical outlet and communicates with the receiver at the physician's office, transmitting "up-to-the-second information" on cardiac parameters and ICD functioning. The physician can remotely review real-time and stored electrograms, surface ECGs, and delivered therapies, according to St Jude.

Complete informations and data are available on the original website TheHeart.org