In this paper, we propose a novel low complexity on-chip ECG data compression methodology targeting remote health-care applications. This is to the best of our knowledge the first attempt for on-chip reliable data compression. The proposed methodology has been implemented targeting Application Specific Integrated Circuit platform at 1MHz at Vdd 1.62V for UMC 130nm technology library with 16 bits system word-length. Furthermore the proposed methodology results in a faithful reconstruction which has been validated using MIT-BIH PTB-DB as well as our institute's health repository IITH-DB. On an average about 90% compression is achieved with more than 83% R2 statistics, 98% Cross Correlation and about 99% Regression between the original and the reconstructed data signifying the diagnostic accuracy. Subsequently the proposed methodology is capable of storing approximately 47 hrs of data in the same on-chip memory when compared to that of 5 hours of continuous data in the state of the art which would lead to enhanced diagnosis and prognosis in remote health-care. © 2014 IEEE.