To view our videos, you need to:
1. Enable JavaScript. Learn how.
2. Install Adobe Flash. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

For 10 years, Robert McKane has been wearing a pacemaker. But just a few weeks ago at St. Francis Hospital on Long Island, he became one of the very first Americans to be fitted with what's billed as the very first wireless pacemaker. While he's asleep, the wireless transmitter built into the St. Jude Medical device talks to a machine on McKane's bedside table every morning at 2 a.m. where it fires off an entire checkup to his doctor over the Internet.

"Previously, patients would come into the office two to three times a year, we would put a wand on them that's connected to a proprietary computer and we would interrogate the device which is essentially to tell it to run through a bunch of maneuvers," said Dr. Steven Greenberg of St. Francis Hospital. "Well now, at home, every night, we get the full office visit. So we get the battery function, the wires, the integrity, we get the electrocardiograms, everything, if there's a problem we get alerted, and hopefully prevent further problems with either their pacemaker or their rhythm."

If a patient feels a little off, they can hit a button, and send an instant checkup to the doctor without waiting until 2 a.m.

"The sense of security it provides definitely transcends what the previous devices represented," McKane said. "As with any device, there's always the possibility of failure, you suppress this thought but it's in the back of your head and with previous devices I just felt I was taking more of a chance."

While this type of wireless technology may be just starting out with pacemakers, doctors fully expect to see it in the very near future to start spreading to other devices.

"We may be able to find mounted on a pacemaker wire, we can mount a sensor to monitor blood pressure, to monitor blood sugar for diabetes, cholesterol," Greenberg said. "Now we have an entire disease management system and if you think out of the box, this technology may be leveraged in a nonpacemaker population."

In addition to catching bad stuff more quickly, Greenberg says since he already has so much information on the patient before he or she even steps in to the office, that means less time spent on routine diagnostics and more time to address specific needs and concerns unique to each patient.