Experiences in digitizing and digitally measuring a paper-based ECG archive.

BACKGROUND: No established method for digitizing and digital measuring of paper electrocardiograms (ECG) exists. We describe a paper ECG digitizing and digital measuring process, and report comparability to manual measurements. METHODS: A paper ECG was recorded from 7203 health survey participants in 1978-1980. With specific software, the ECGs were digitized (ECG Trace Tool), and measured digitally (EASE). A sub-sample of 100 ECGs was selected for manual measurements. RESULTS: The measurement methods showed good agreement. The mean global (EASE)-(manual) differences were 1.4ms (95% CI 0.5-2.2) for PR interval, -1.0ms (95% CI -1.5-[-0.5]) for QRS duration, and 11.6ms (95% CI 10.5-12.7) for QT interval. The mean inter-method amplitude differences of RampV5, RampV6, SampV1, TampII and TampV5 ranged from -0.03mV to 0.01mV. CONCLUSIONS: The presented paper-to-digital conversion and digital measurement process is an accurate and reliable method, enabling efficient storing and analysis of paper ECGs.