This paper describes a suite of programs that support evaluations
of automated ECG analyzers in accordance with the methods described in
the EC-38 standard (as well as those in the earlier ECAR Recommended
Practice). These methods are sufficiently complex that the
development of such a suite of programs is not an afternoon's work.
By making generally available reference implementations of the
evaluation algorithms, much needless duplication of effort may be
avoided. By circulating them in source form to other users, we may
hope to find and correct any bugs, with the eventual result that
evaluators of devices should not have to bear the burden of evaluating
the evaluation technique itself. By using them for evaluations, any
ambiguities in the English specification of the evaluation algorithms
are resolved in a consistent manner for each device tested. These
programs are written in C and run under MS-DOS or UNIX. They have
been made available as part of the DB Software Package
from MIT
and are included in the current edition of the
MIT-BIH Arrhythmia Database CD-ROM. In this paper, the names of these
programs are printed like this.