Quality assurance of interpretative electrocardiographs: development of testing services in the European communities-first results

To support harmonization and implementation of quality standards within Europe a project called Conformance Testing Services for Computerized Electrocardiography (CTS-ECG) has been launched by the Commission of the European communities. For a pilot phase two testing centers at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and at Medizinische Hochschule Hannover have been installed to develop and provide harmonized methods, specifications and procedures for testing computerized electrocardiographs. Safety requirements, hardware performance, software performance and communication facilities will be tested. Major hardware and software components of the test systems have been developed and installed and first system tests have been obtained