Improving the quality of ECGs collected using mobile phones: The PhysioNet/Computing in Cardiology Challenge 2011

The aim of the PhysioNet/Computing in Cardiology Challenge 2011 was to develop an efficient algorithm able to run within a mobile phone, that can provide useful feedback in the process of acquiring a diagnostically useful 12-lead ECG recordings. PhysioNet provided a large set of ECG records for use in the Challenge, together with an open-source sample application that can run on an Android phone, and can classify ECGs as acceptable or unacceptable. A total of 49 teams and individuals participated in challenge, which entailed three events. In event 1, participants developed algorithms for classifying ECGs with respect to quality, and submitted their algorithms' classifications of 500 ECGs, obtaining 89-93% accuracy using variety of methods. In event 2, participants submitted Java implementations of their algorithms to be used in the sample mobile application; we tested these in two reference mobile phones using the same data set and scoring method as in event 1, obtaining 80-91% accuracy. Event 3 was similar to event 2, but was conducted using a set of ECGs not available for study by the participants, and the scoring was a function of both accuracy and mobile phone processing speed; in this event, similar levels of accuracy were achieved with average execution times of less than 2 seconds on the reference phones.