Method and apparatus for identifying potentially misclassified arrhythmic episodes

A system, comprising:

• an implantable cardiac device (ICD), comprising:
• sensing circuitry configured to sense cardiac electrical activity;
• energy delivery circuitry configured to deliver cardiac electrical therapy to treat cardiac tachyarrhythmias;
• a local processor coupled to the sensing circuitry and the energy delivery circuitry;
• a local memory coupled to the local processor and configured to store one or more cardiac signal templates, a plurality of cardiac tachyarrhythmia discrimination algorithms, and ICD data produced by the local processor, the ICD data comprising data associated with a plurality of cardiac tacharrhythmic episodes classified by the ICD using the plurality of tachyarrhythmia discrimination algorithms and the one or more cardiac signal templates;
• and
• communications circuitry coupled to the local processor;
• and
• an external device, comprising:
• a communications interface configured to receive the ICD data;
• an external memory configured to store the ICD data, an external discrimination algorithm (EDA) different from the cardiac tachyarrhythmia discrimination algorithms stored in the ICD, and one or more supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) templates, the EDA comprising one or more cardiac tachyarrhythmia discrimination algorithms requiring computational resources exceeding those offered by the ICD;
• and
• an external processor coupled to the communications interface and the external memory, the external processor configured to apply the EDA to the ICD data stored in the external memory to automatically classify the plurality of cardiac tacharrhythmic episodes classified by the ICD relative to the one or more SVT templates without requiring user intervention, the external processor configured to generate a validation metric based on a misclassification of one or more of the plurality of cardiac tacharrhythmic episodes by the ICD, the validation metric indicative of a level of confidence of the ICD properly classifying the plurality of cardiac tacharrhythmic episodes.

A method, comprising:

• storing a plurality of cardiac tachyarrhythmia discrimination algorithms in an implantable cardiac device (ICD);
• classifying a plurality of cardiac tacharrhythmic episodes by the ICD using the plurality of tachyarrhythmia discrimination algorithms;
• producing ICD data associated with the plurality of cardiac tacharrhythmic episodes including ICD classification data;
• receiving the ICD data by an external system;
• applying an external discrimination algorithm (EDA) to the received ICD data by the external system, the EDA different from the cardiac tachyarrhythmia discrimination algorithms stored in the ICD, the EDA comprising one or more cardiac tachyarrhythmia discrimination algorithms requiring computational resources exceeding those offered by the ICD;
• automatically classifying the plurality of cardiac tacharrhythmic episodes classified by the ICD using the EDA without requiring user intervention;
• and
• generating, by the external system, a validation metric based on a comparison between the ICD and external device classifications of each of the plurality of cardiac tacharrhythmic episodes, the validation metric indicative of level of confidence of the ICD properly classifying the plurality of cardiac tacharrhythmic episodes.