Heart Rate Variability as a Predictor of Ischemic Heart Disease

Identification of patients who are at highest risk for heart attack is an important task for emergency medicine physicians. Currently, physicians use a variety of different scoring systems to stratify their risk for having a heart attack. Heart rate variability (HRV) is a measure derived from noninvasive cardiac monitoring. This data is collected from a simple, non-invasive chest strap during a 10-minute recording session. The purpose of this proposal is to collect heart rate variability data on patients admitted to the emergency department with chest pain. The intent is to measure the association between heart rate variability and the various risk stratification scoring systems for chest pain.

The investigators propose to enroll patients admitted to the emergency department with chest pain. In addition to HRV data, clinical risk factors will be obtained, using validated clinical risk scoring systems. The team will follow patient's clinical course in order to include information about the determined cause of chest pain. The goal is to understand how HRV can augment common risk stratification scoring systems for patient presenting to the ED with chest pain.