Brno, Czech Republic, 14th of April, 2022. Founders of VDI Technologies officially spin-off the VDI project by founding the VDI Technologies s.r.o., a limited liability company with its seat in Prague, Czech Republic.
The primary objectives of the new company are to complete product development and certification prior to commercialization of the UHF-ECG System.
In 2013 a group from the Institute of Scientific Instruments, the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, led by Pavel Jurak, conducted the first ultra-high-frequency ECG experiments with scientists from St. Anne’s University Hospital Brno. The entire 2kHz ECG bandwidth was analyzed during a study, and potentially clinically useful high-frequency ECG signals were observed in bands of up to 1.5kHz. Software calculating high-fidelity signal envelopes began to be developed to enable further research of high-frequency ECG components.
Clinical studies monitoring asynchrony, shape, and amplitudes between individual leads were conducted. Signal processing algorithms were further fine-tuned over the years. Substantial improvement was made with the implementation of frequency window averaging, introduced in 2019, while cooperation expanded to University Hospital Kralovske Vinohrady, Prague team led by Karol Curila. That led to the award of grant financing intending to design a VDI Monitor (hardware & software), which would detect clear high-frequency ECG signals capable of further analysis (time delays, high-frequency patterns).
The first version of the UHF-ECG monitor was finished in 2019. It was subsequently used in several clinical studies led by founding institutions. These studies were successfully published and received.
Furthermore, the commercial version of the UHF-ECG system development began in 2021. VDIAQ ECG signal amplifier was designed and tested for mechanical, electrical, and EMC safety in 2022. The system is being used under IRB approval in 12 research clinics in Great Britain, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. VDI Vision software was designed, analyzed, and tested on a database of more than 5,000 cases recorded over the years.
Until 2021 the project was solely funded by several grant projects.