FDA clears St. Jude RF wireless transmitter for implanted cardiac devices

The FDA has approved St. Jude Medical’s Merlin@home transmitter, a radio-frequency (RF) wireless technology that remotely monitors patients’ implanted cardiac devices.

St. Jude said its transmitter supports Current RF and Promote RF family of devices and works in conjunction with the St. Jude data management system, Merlin.net patient care network (PCN), to provide complete remote care service for patients and their physicians.

The Merlin@home transmitter’s wireless technology gives patients the comfort of having devices checked, according to the St. Paul, Minn.-based company. Since the transmitter initiates the scheduled follow-up and uses RF wireless telemetry to download data from the device, the entire follow-up procedure is conducted without any direct patient involvement.

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