IIT-AIIMS Dhadkan app to help monitor your heart

New Delhi: Scientists from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee have developed a mobile app that can remotely monitor patients at risk of heart failure and provide them with medical assistance.

Developed by its Computational Biology group, the ‘Dhadkan’ app can automatically send notifications to both the doctor and the patient, in case of any drastic changes in patient’s data indicating possibility of imminent heart failure.

The free app was developed in collaboration with Sandeep Seth and Gopichandran from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi.

The mobile app has been designed to be ‘easy-to-use’ so that people in rural areas can also benefit.

“Dhadkan app will be of immense help to patients who live in distant areas and cannot come at regular intervals to tertiary care hospitals,” said Deepak Sharma, assistant professor at department of biotechnology, IIT-Roorkee.

“It collects patient’s data (at any desired interval) on blood pressure, heart rate, and weight, and transmits it to the authorized caregiver (a doctor, nurse or paramedic) who is linked to the patient during the initial registration,” he said.

The app also provides for two-way communication between doctors and patients. In addition, patients have the freedom to send ECG reports to the doctor if needed.

The app will be used for conducting a randomized control trial on 100 heart failure patients at AIIMS to validate its utility and to suggest any new features that can be incorporated.

The app was developed by Somesh Chaturvedi, a B.Tech biotechnology fourth year student and Shreya Srivastava, a biotechnology PhD first year student.

India has about 10 million patients at risk of heart failure. The app will also help in the surveillance of incidence, prevalence and outcomes of heart failure.