COVID-19 Research
What is the Kardia 6L
The Kardia 6L is a handheld electrode which can be used by patients to record their own a 6 lead ECG. It is a very useful device to record your own ECG during an episode of palpitations. The electrode communicates directly with an App on your own smart phone to record the ECG, which can then be emailed as a PDF to your cardiologist for a report.
Figure 1
The Kardia 6L electrode
Background to the study
COVID-19 is known to affect the heart in a proportion of patients. COVID-19 patients in hospital routinely need an ECG to see if their heart has been affected by COVID-19. This is an intimate investigation involving close contact between a nurse and the patient. We compared the Kardia 6L device with a conventional ECG to see if the Kardia 6L device could replace the conventional ECG.
What did we do?
We asked a number of patients admitted to the Royal Free Hospital and Barnet Hospital on cardiac wards with COVID-19 to help us with the study. We recorded 12 leads ECGs and Kardia 6L ECGS recordings and asked to cardiologists to independently compare the findings from each test.
What did we find?
We found the device very useful in recording the patients own ECG and found it was really liked by both patients and health care workers. The technology has the potential to help both patients and health care staff by reducing the exposure of the nurse to patients with COVID-19 and reducing the demand for PPE.​