TinyEKG: Providing heart health checks in the blink of an eye

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in the world. In the United States alone, someone dies from cardiovascular disease every 34 seconds. This issue hits home for Habib Ur Rahman, a doctoral candidate in electrical and computer engineering at CSU. In his home country of Bangladesh, cardiovascular disease is responsible for 21% of deaths.

Driven to find a solution, Rahman set out to develop a practical tool for at-home early detection of heart abnormalities, as symptoms can be subtle and difficult to detect.  The innovation, the TinyEKG, is a portable and affordable device capable of identifying conditions such as arrhythmias and coronary artery disease in less than a second with 99% accuracy. Rahman created this device with the help of his advisor, Dr. Biswajit Ray, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.

“We are doing both the collection and the detection in the same tiny, embedded device,” explained Rahman. “It will work like a preventive kit, allowing users to test at any time.”

The TinyEKG is packaged in a 3D-printed design with a simple screen that displays the reading results. Remarkably, it operates independently of external devices or the internet, utilizing a single coin cell battery. This makes it suitable for use at home, in clinics, or in resource-limited settings. Users stick the three electrodes to their body to take the reading, receiving results faster than the blink of an eye—specifically, in 25 milliseconds. Leveraging a lightweight AI model, the TinyEKG then uses algorithms to instantly retrieve the data and read the results into three categories: normal, arrhythmia, or coronary artery disease. Users can then determine whether they should contact a healthcare provider for follow-up.