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.