The design of WinAtrec allows the analysis of Continuous ECG recordings using the RR bin approach. WinAtrec (and in particular the RR bin approach) can assess drug-related changes on QRS and QT intervals.

The incorporated RR bin-approach, also referred as Selective Beat Averaging , is a module where individual QRS complexes are averaged according to the instantaneous heart-rate preceding them. Use of this method is well suited for the evaluation of drug-induced QT prolongation.

In addition of the RR-bin, WinAtrec performs time-based bins, where the sum of ECG beats over a given time windows are averaged to provide families of templates stratified over time.

Selective beat averaging is used to obtain averages of P-QRS-T complexes that are preceded by the same stable heart rate. This philosophy aims to respect the restitution curve of ventricular repolarization which demonstrates that full adaptation of QT interval to changes in heart rate is only achieved after time periods that can be longer than a minute. Thus, despite an identical RR interval, beats occurring "in the middle of heart rate changes" may have a different repolarization shape than those occurring at stable heart rate. Most of all, they will have a different QT duration.

RR-bin algorithm determines a family of templates stratified over the range of available RR intervals, where the stratification resolution (in msec) is user selectable and can be as small as 5 msec.

In addition to the command-line tool, used to perform the analysis, WinAtrec provides a graphic interface to review (and edit) the analyzed families.