Methods and systems for arrhythmia episode prioritization and improving arrhythmia detection and classification to reduce clinical review burden

A system, comprising:

• an implantable medical device (IMD);
• and
• an external system (ES);
• the IMD and the ES collectively including one or more processors, at least one of which is included in the IMD, and at least one of which is included in the ES;
• the IMD including an accelerometer and configured to:
• be implanted in a patient;
• monitor for arrhythmic episodes;
• and
• for each arrhythmic episode of at least some a plurality of arrhythmic episodes that are detected by the IMD during a period of time, determine and store within memory of the IMD a respective device classified arrhythmia (DCA) data set including the following:
• (i) respective EGM data indicative of an EGM segment corresponding to the arrhythmic episode,
• (ii) respective classification data that specifies a type of the arrhythmic episode, and
• (iii) respective patient activity information and/or patient posture information corresponding to the arrhythmic episode and obtained using the accelerometer of the IMD;
• and
• at least one of the one or more processors configured to:
• rank at least some of the plurality of arrhythmic episodes that were detected by the IMD during the period of time, wherein at least some of the ranking is performed based on at least one of the patient activity information and/or the patient posture information obtained using the accelerometer of the IMD;
• and
• select for clinical review, based on results of the ranking, a subset of the plurality of arrhythmic episodes that were detected by the IMD during the period of time;
• where the subset that is selected for clinical review is less than all of the plurality of arrhythmic episodes that were detected by the IMD during the period of time.

A method for reducing a burden associated with clinical review of electrogram (EGM) segments obtained from an implantable medical device (IMD) that includes an accelerometer and is configured to monitor for arrhythmic episodes of a patient within which the IMD is implanted, the method comprising:

• obtaining, for each arrhythmic episode of at least some a plurality of arrhythmic episodes that were detected by the IMD during a period of time, the following:
• (i) respective EGM data indicative of an EGM segment corresponding to the arrhythmic episode,
• (ii) respective classification data that specifies a type of the arrhythmic episode, and
• (iii) respective patient activity information and/or patient posture information corresponding to the arrhythmic episode and obtained using the accelerometer of the IMD;
• ranking at least some of the plurality of arrhythmic episodes that were detected by the IMD during the period of time, wherein at least some of the ranking is performed based on at least one of the patient activity information and/or the patient posture information obtained using the accelerometer of the IMD;
• and
• selecting for clinical review, based on results of the ranking, a subset of the plurality of arrhythmic episodes that were detected by the IMD during the period of time;
• where the subset of the plurality of arrhythmic episodes, that is selected for clinical review, is less than all of the plurality of arrhythmic episodes that were detected by the IMD during the period of time.