The Microcomputer in Your Chest Needs a Landline, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Reveals

The spread of an advanced medical-technology — tiny, wireless computers, embedded in surgically implantable defibrillators — has come up against an unlikely obstacle: The devices rely on old-fashioned landlines, quickly vanishing from American households, to relay data to doctors and companies. The little computers wirelessly transmit medical data, such as patients’ heart rates, to bedside monitors in patients’ homes. They also detect electrical irregularities in the potentially life-saving devices, which shock irregular heartbeats back to normal rhythm, allowing doctors to predict dangerous device failures, as WSJ reports.