ECG is one of the most common examinations in hospitals, e.g. for diagnosing cardiovascular diseases - the most frequent cause of death worldwide. Goal of this paper was to identify and describe the typical digitized workflow, IT systems and data formats for ECG in hospitals: A survey on current ECG-data management practices was conducted with four German speaking hospitals. A generic model of ECG data management was drafted. Today, these hospitals do not use DICOM as exchange format nor do they implement IHE profiles such as REWF for the ECG. Reasons include missing IT infrastructure such as Master Patient Index or electronic archive. ECG data management could be improved at different levels, with the chance to reduce error sources and to improves in patient safety. Storage of ECG raw data promises better diagnoses based on big data and machine learning technologies.
Keywords: ECG data; IHE; Interoperability.