Keele Research Repository

Patients with severe mental illness experience poorer health outcomes than the rest of the population which result in a significantly reduced life expectancy (Viron and Stern, 2010). The cause of poor physical health in this group has been attributed to several factors including side effects of medication and inadequate monitoring of physical health (McGuinness and Follan, 2016). It is known that electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring for patients prescribed antipsychotic medicines is often not compliant with guidelines despite these drugs being known to cause prolonged QT intervals which can lead to a potentially fatal heart arrhythmia Torsades de Pointes (Polcwiartek et al. 2016). New smartphone compatible technology has been developed that can take an ECG in 30 seconds from a fingertip reading. This paper provides the background to a project conducted by the ACP to explore whether the application of this technology can improve compliance for ECG monitoring for patients who are prescribed antipsychotic medication.