Long term continuous collection of high resolution ECG signals from a coronary care unit

Cardiovascular disease is the commonest cause of death in Western society. For this reason much effort has been dedicated to the study of its origins, prevention and treatment. Our group has a specific interest in the analysis of the electrocardiogram (ECG) in life threatening cardiac arrhythmias and its antecedents, with a view to providing diagnostic tools and information to facilitate patient resuscitation. For development and testing of analytical tools we require a relevant library of real ECG signals. In this paper we describe the acquisition and storage of a continuous collection of ECG signals obtained from the Coronary Care Unit (CCU) at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, UK.