Rethinking Cardiac Monitoring: Cartometric Cardiography for Resilient and Accessible Heart Function Assessment
- Elena Fraser
- Jul 21
- 3 min read
Heart failure (HF) affects over six million adults in the United States, with projections indicating that number will rise beyond eight million by 2030. Despite the prevalence of this chronic condition, thirty-eight percent of HF cases are diagnosed in acute care settings, even though nearly half of those patients experienced symptoms in the preceding six months. These statistics highlight a critical gap in early detection and day-to-day management of heart health.
Traditional diagnostics, such as echocardiography or catheter-based assessments, play an essential role in heart failure care. However, they are episodic, resource-intensive, and heavily dependent on trained personnel and precise positioning. As a result, they remain difficult to deploy in high-throughput clinics, home environments, or among populations with limited access to specialty care.
A New Approach
Cartometric cardiography reconstructs key aspects of heart function by analyzing multimodal data captured from noninvasive sensors. Instead of replicating full diagnostic imaging or relying on waveform interpretation, DigiBeat’s cartometric system is designed to extract and calculate physiological indices. The result is a simplified, functional view of cardiovascular health, intended to support clinical reasoning for routine screening or monitoring between formal diagnostic encounters.
What makes this methodology particularly compelling is its resilience to placement variability. In real-world environments, textbook-perfect positioning requires skill and adds time, both things in short supply. Cartometric cardiography compensates for misadjustment by analyzing both the content of the signals and their positional relationships, allowing the system to detect and adjust for suboptimal placement. This resilience enhances usability and consistency, enabling broader deployment of monitoring tools without sacrificing interpretability.
This flexibility is critical for advancing a new generation of cardiovascular care—one grounded in prevention rather than reaction. In patients with either preserved or reduced ejection fraction, subtle shifts in preload, afterload, or contractility may precede clinical decompensation. Recognizing these shifts early supports preemptive interventions, including medication titration or therapy adjustments. In ongoing management, it provides a window into the physiological response to medications such as SGLT2 inhibitors or beta-blockers. Just as importantly, it empowers patients with the ability to engage in daily health monitoring without requiring in-person visits or specialized knowledge.
Prevention is power
By identifying risk earlier and monitoring function regularly, cartometric cardiography aligns with a broader movement to transition from sick care to health care. It provides clinicians with ongoing insight while helping patients take their health back. Instead of overwhelming users with raw voltages or pressure traces, the system distills signal complexity into concise summaries that reflect meaningful changes in cardiovascular status. These outputs are designed to be both actionable and understandable, enhancing the utility of monitoring in both clinical and personal settings. Furthermore, timely action could potentially reduce the incidence of unplanned hospitalizations.
As heart failure continues to drive long-term morbidity and health care utilization, it becomes increasingly evident that monitoring strategies must evolve. The challenge is not only one of technology, but of accessibility and continuity. Cartometric cardiography presents a promising solution by combining positional resilience and abstracted signal interpretation through machine learning and AI analysis. It has the potential to support both clinicians and patients in recognizing and responding to changes in heart function.
This approach remains under active development and evaluation. Any device employing this methodology is not yet cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for clinical use, and no claims are made regarding its safety or effectiveness for diagnosis or treatment. This discussion is presented for educational and scientific purposes only.
References
Virani SS, et al. Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics—2021 Update. Circulation. 2021;143:e254–e743. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000757
McDonagh TA, et al. 2021 ESC Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Acute and Chronic Heart Failure. Eur Heart J. 2021;42(36):3599–3726. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehab368
Sandhu AT, et al. Disparity in the Setting of Incident Heart Failure Diagnosis. Circulation: Heart Failure 2021, 14(8):e008538 https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCHEARTFAILURE.121.008538