Patent ID: 8548574

Claim:
A method for automatically compressing electrocardiogram (ECG) data, comprising: receiving a one-dimensional (1-D) ECG signal; generating a two-dimensional (2-D) ECG data array from the 1-D ECG signal; wavelet transforming the 2-D ECG data array to generate wavelet coefficients including a low frequency subband, a first intermediate frequency subband, a second intermediate frequency subband, and a high-frequency subband; and encoding the wavelet coefficients to generate compressed ECG data, wherein encoding the wavelet coefficients comprises subjecting the low frequency subband to a first encoding scheme, subjecting the first intermediate frequency subband to a second encoding scheme different than the first encoding scheme, subjecting the second intermediate frequency subband to a third encoding scheme different than the first and second encoding schemes, and subjecting the high frequency subband to a fourth encoding scheme different than the first, second and third encoding schemes.