Data from Nancy Guthrie’s pacemaker has helped shed light on the events leading up to her kidnapping, but there are significant limits in how much data the devices can collect.
Most importantly for law enforcement investigating a disappearance or crime, the devices can’t be used to track a person’s location.
However, they can provide valuable information about heart function and cardiac events. For example, New Mexico officials said actor Gene Hackman’s pacemaker revealed that he may have died nearly 10 days before his body was found.
In Guthrie’s case, a pacemaker app shows it was disconnected from her phone early on Feb. 1, according to a timeline provided by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, which would not affect the device’s functioning but would make outside monitoring of the pacemaker impossible.
Pacemakers are small, battery-controlled devices that are implanted under the skin and prevent the heart from beating too slowly. Pacemakers trigger the heart to beat when it’s time to beat, according to Amy Kleinhans, lead nurse practitioner for the electrophysiology group and clinical manager for the device clinic at HonorHealth Heart Care, which remotely monitors about 4,800 pacemakers.
“The purpose of a pacemaker is to fix a low heart rate. The heart rate is too low. It’s not responding appropriately to activity,” she said. “So we put devices in that can kind of speed the heart up.”
Timeline: How could Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapper avoid surveillance cameras?
Pacemakers need to be paired with an app
Pacemakers can’t communicate any information about a patient without being connected to a monitoring device, often an app on a smartphone, that’s within range, Kleinhans said. Kleinhans spoke with The Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network, about pacemakers and how they work, not about Guthrie’s specific case.
But even when a pacemaker is properly connected to a monitoring device or app, it can’t tell the manufacturer or a heart clinic where a particular patient is, Kleinhans said.
“There’s no locator on these things,” Kleinhans said. “It’s purely a communication tool for the device (pacemaker) to send us information. … It sends us information. We can’t send it information.”
Pacemakers transmit alerts for serious events ‒ but not in real time
As long as it’s connected to an app or a home device, the pacemaker will alert clinics about serious cardiac events, including if a heart stops beating.
“If we aren’t able to get hold of the patient, we look for their contact people that we are approved to speak to. We will even contact local authorities and have well checks done,” Kleinhans said.
Kleinhans’ clinic has a “connectivity list” of patients whose pacemakers have lost connection with their apps or home devices and therefore there’s no data getting transmitted. Kleinhans said her clinic has four employees whose entire jobs focus on ensuring device connectivity and addressing such problems. It happens all of the time when patients go on vacation.
The clinic will get a connectivity alert from the manufacturer if there’s a disconnection, but typically not until the patient has been disconnected for 14 to 21 days.
“It does not not stream in real time. I think that’s a confusion that patients often have,” Kleinhans said of the alerts, which often confuse patients. “Even if it’s app-based and it’s Bluetooth, it is not livestreaming. It sends information by exception only.”
A pacemaker needs to be in range to transmit data
But the pacemaker must be in range of of either a home box device that’s paired with the pacemaker and typically kept at the bedside, or to a smartphone or smartwatch app, in order to transmit the data to the clinic monitoring the pacemaker.
If Guthrie’s pacemaker is not in range of the device that’s synced to her pacemaker, then the clinic monitoring her pacemaker won’t get an alert, even if she has a serious cardiac event.
“The purpose of remote monitoring is that it allows the pacemaker to send information to us outside of regular office visits,” Kleinhans said. “The pacemaker is monitoring the patient 24/7 and it is storing the information.”
If a pacemaker stops syncing, it doesn’t mean it stops working
Even if Guthrie’s pacemaker can’t transmit data, it won’t stop doing its job to correct Guthrie’s heart problems.
The pacemaker would still operate, even if it’s not transmitting data, unless there’s a battery failure. But batteries typically last five or more years and get regularly checked during office visits.
“The pacemaker would still function and the pacemaker would still be monitoring them,” Kleinhans said. “But we would not be able to get messages from their pacemaker anymore.”
A pacemaker is not a Life Alert
Apps for pacemakers are a way for pacemakers to send clinics data in between scheduled in-office visits, not a way to alert officials in the event of an emergency, Kleinhans said.
“When we talk to our patients and educate our patients about remote monitoring, we do have them sign a remote monitoring agreement so they understand,” Kleinhans said. “It is not an Emergency Response System. It is not a Life Alert. If you have an event, we may not see that event for 24 hours.”
Reach health-care reporter Stephanie Innes at stephanie.innes@usatodayco.com or follow her on X: @stephanieinnes or on Bluesky: @stephanieinnes.bsky.social.
Contributing: N’dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Can a pacemaker track you? Nancy Guthrie case shows tech limits.
