Thursday, July 09, 2009

Why Do People Get 48-Hour Holter Monitors?

Look, if an arrhythmia doesn't show up in the first 24 hours, it's not that much more likely to show up in the following 24 hours. Although it's probably happened, I've never seen a "48-hour" Holter detect an arrhythmia better than a 24-hour Holter and all it ever does is increase costs (and torment the Holter reader).

If a patient has infrequent symptoms, consider an 30-day event (loop) recorder instead.

There. I feel better now.

-Wes

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I got it but, when there is $$$ around, the logic may change a little bit..... Dr.DJ

Patrick said...

24 hours is plenty. But I jogged in place a bit near the end just to make sure my guy had generous amounts of PVCs to analyze.

Previous MI - the gift that keeps on giving.

Michael said...

when would you consider one of the mobile services like Cardionet?