iRhythm Stock – A Play on Cardiac Monitoring and AI

If you took all the blood vessels in an adult human and laid them out in a single line it would stretch to almost 100,000 miles, enough to circle the entire globe four times. Imagine designing a pump to push liquid through that massive nest of blood vessels and you’ll end up with a newfound appreciation for how much work your heart does throughout your lifetime. Understanding the complexities of the human heart is the job of cardiologists who study for about twelve years before being qualified enough to practice. That’s why they make the big bucks. According to Glassdoor, the average salary for a Cardiologist is $358,646 in the United States.

Problems with the heart often manifest themselves through early signs such as slow, fast, or irregular heartbeats. In order to diagnose potential heart problems, cardiologists will often utilize an ElectroCardioGram (ECG) which is a device that measures the heart’s activities. Since observations are generally needed beyond just an hour or two spent in the doctor’s office, cardiologists will often deploy what’s called “mobile cardiac telemetry” which is simply the ability to monitor the heart over a sustained period of time outside of the doctor’s office. One such apparatus is the “Holter monitor” which is a battery-powered portable medical device that measures and records your heart’s activity while you w