Patent ID: 8483808

Claim:
A method for automatically analyzing a cardiac signal comprising the steps of: i) providing an episode database on a computer system including at least one episode data record, wherein each episode data record includes a cardiac signal from at least one data-generating device, wherein the cardiac signal has N beats; ii) selecting a range of possible values for K; iii) for each value of K, performing the following steps using a computer system: (a) for each set S of K beats, perform the following steps: 1. for each beat b not in Set S, find which member s(b) of the set S is closest to b and calculate a morphology distance between s(b) and b; 2. for each beat b, calculate a morphology distance compilation value for each set S, wherein the morphology distances are used in calculating the morphology distance compilation value; (b) compare the morphology distance compilation values to identify which set S of K beats results in the best representation of the cardiac signal based on the morphology distance compilation value; and (c) record the set s of K beats that results in the best representation of the cardiac signal as a beat template for the value of K and record the morphology distance compilation value for the beat template; iv) based on the morphology distance compilation values for each value of K, determine a best value of K for the cardiac signal where K beat templates can represent all the beats in the cardiac signal; and v) output the best value of K for the cardiac signal.