Innovation of the week: A digital stethoscope

An "iconic tool of doctors" is getting a 21st-century upgrade, said Steve Lohr at The New York Times. Eko Core is a digital device that attaches to a conventional stethoscope and records and amplifies heart sounds, sending the audio and sound-wave images to an iPhone app. From there, the data can be shared with hospitals and clinics.

The device could help doctors make more accurate diagnoses by enabling them "to hear and see the pattern of a patient's heart rhythms in greater detail," as well as quickly compare heart sounds from a recent visit to those from a year or two ago. The Berkeley, California-based startup is also working on an algorithm that compares a patient's heart rhythms with a cloud-based data library of heart sounds, so that doctors can quickly ascertain whether the patient's results are abnormal or normal. Eko Core, which is FDA approved, starts at $199.

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