1 Introduction

Electrocardiography is one of the most frequently applied non-invasive tests for early detection of heart disease, which is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in western countries. It is estimated that more than 100 million ECGs are recorded annually in Western Europe. In view of the high costs of health care it is of eminent importance that the results of this straightforward cardiac test can be easily communicated between the various health care providers and that they can be stored in electronic patient health records to support continuity of care.

It is not anymore acceptable that, in the age of information technology, millions of Euros are wasted for unnecessarily repeated tests or that patients do not obtain appropriate care because relevant clinical information is not available at the point of care.

This document is intended to facilitate understanding and to promote the implementation of the Standard Communication Protocol for Computer-assisted Electrocardiography based on the current version prEN 1064:2002 prepared by CEN/TC 251.

Within this (first) part of the document easy to understand overview information, particularly on the content and structure of an SCP-ECG record (the Interchange Format), will be given.

A reader should have some basic understanding of what an ECG is and how it is represented as a time series. Some basic knowledge of computer-assisted ECG analysis would be helpful.

Based on technical questions that will be dealt with later we might describe more technical and programming details.

In any case the reader should have available the original text of the Standard when studying this text.

(For those who are unaware of or unfamiliar with the European Project "OpenECG" that was launched by the European Commission on July 2002 to support the Implementation and Dissemination of the SCP-ECG Standard, the following Internet address may be helpful: www.openecg.net).

There information on the goals and objectives of this project may be found. Also, the proceedings of the first OpenECG workshop (i.e., copies of the ppt presentations and discussion summaries) are downloadable from this reference address.