Interoperability Support and Openness in ECG Data Format - Philips' Position
Sophia Zhou, PhD, FACC
Diagnostic ECG Group, Philips Medical System, Oxnard, CA, USA
The needs for electrocardiograph interoperability and accessibility of electrocardiogram (ECG) databases are clearly becoming more insistent. As part of Philips Medical Systems longstanding commitment to the medical community, a major breakthrough in product design has been made to support interoperability and open ECG data format. Philips Medical Systems is the first in the industry to provide the XML (eXtensible Markup Language) data format for the entire line of ECG products including the recently released Pagewriter Touch electrocardiographs, Tracemaster ECG database management system, Intellivue 12-lead monitors and HeartStart MRx defibrillators. By incorporating the XML data format, Philips Medical Systems is giving researchers and healthcare professionals the ownership of and accessibility to their data and flexibility in managing, sharing and reporting data. The Philips Medical System has taken an additional step to make the XML data format schema available to the public and to share the XML schema with researchers, users and standardization organizations. The feedback received has been tremendous. Philips' approach not only to open its ECG format but also to stay on top of new technology is proven to be the right direction.
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