iRhythm Technologies, Inc., a leading digital health care solutions company focused on advancing cardiac care, announced the launch of new patient engagement tools to enhance the diagnosis of cardiac arrhythmias. Patients using the ZIO continuous cardiac monitoring service from iRhythm can now conveniently log heart symptoms with the new myZIO app for iPhone or at www.myZIO.com.

This new family of smartphone and web applications is designed to provide additional data for physicians to help rule-in or rule-out arrhythmias sooner in the diagnostic pathway – and adjust the patient's care accordingly.

In addition to allowing patients to digitally record any irregular heartbeat symptoms and associated activities, the myZIO app maximizes a patient's experience with the ZIO Service by providing education, reminders, answering common questions and offering recommendations on the use of the ZIO Patch. Information from the app provides physicians with a more complete picture of the patient's health, allowing for faster and more accurate diagnosis and potentially eliminating the need for additional testing.

Each year, millions of patients see physicians because they feel symptoms that may be caused by an irregular heartbeat, or arrhythmia. The iRhythm ZIO Service – proven in multiple peer-reviewed published studies and prescribed for nearly 400,000 patients to date – allows physicians to diagnose arrhythmias more definitively than via previously available diagnostic technologies.

The ZIO Service has the ability to record, store and analyse every heartbeat for up to 14 days, well beyond the 48-hour window of Holter monitoring. Studies of patients wearing the ZIO Patch documented that 50 per cent of arrhythmias were diagnosed after 48 hours1and that 75 per cent of atrial fibrillation patients experienced their longest episode after 48 hours.

"The myZIO app is a great companion to iRhythm's continuous cardiac monitoring service, making it even easier for my patients with suspected cardiac arrhythmias to record their symptoms while wearing the ZIO Patch," said R. Hardwin Mead, M.D., partner and co-founder at Silicon Valley Cardiology in East Palo Alto, CA.

"Such a discreet and convenient way to track symptoms gets the patient intimately involved in the diagnostic process. Combining that additional valuable information with the 20,000 minutes of heartbeat data captured by the ZIO Patch will provide me an even more robust clinical arrhythmia interpretation."

"With the release of the myZIO app, iRhythm is strengthening its leadership among digital healthcare solution providers by enabling better insights to inform clinical decisions," said Kevin King, president and chief executive officer of iRhythm Technologies.

"myZIO is one example of our commitment to putting our patients first. It is also a stepping stone to the creation of arrhythmia patient communities, giving our users a priceless source of education and support. By involving the patient in the clinical decision process, iRhythm is shaping the diagnostic pathway into a more collaborative one and, ultimately, one that dramatically improves patient outcomes."

The ZIO Service is the world's first and long-term continuous monitoring service that is FDA-cleared and supported by extensive clinical data with peer-reviewed publications. The ZIO Service has been clinically proven to enhance clinical decision making and drive lower healthcare costs. Since its commercial launch in 2011, it has been used by nearly 400,000 patients at over 1,000 institutions in the US/ Analytics collected from ZIO monitoring can be used to identify early and effective treatment options, prevent potential clinical issues and reduce readmissions.