Patent ID: 7236818

Claim:
A twelve channel electrocardiograph system comprising: an acquisition element adapted to be disposed on a chest of a patent, to generate a twelve lead electrocardiograph signal and to be coupled to the patient through a set of relatively short leadwires; a hand-held, battery powered portable processing element that is physically separate from the acquisition element and coupled to the acquisition element through a connector cable, said portable processing unit controlled by a central processing unit through a graphical user interface, wherein said central processing unit provides a relatively low frequency reference clock frequency to the acquisition element through the connector cable, wherein said acquisition element further comprising a digital signal processor and an analog-to-digital converter that samples the twelve lead electrocardiogram signal under control of the digital signal processor and a plurality of programmable filters within the digital signal processor specifically adapted to filter the twelve lead electrocardiogram signal from the analog-to-digital converter under control of the central processing unit and wherein said digital signal processor further comprises a relatively high frequency internal clock that is synchronized to the relatively low frequency reference frequency of the central processing unit via a phase-locked loop; and a windows operating system within the portable processing element that controls the acquisition element and portable processing element through the graphical user interface.